I write to you on behalf of the Associazione Radicale Certi Diritti, a LGBTE (E stands for hEtersosexual) Association committed to enhance LGBT Rights, trans rights and sexual rights (see attached file for more information) in Italy.
In the past years, we have conducted an important Same Sex Marriage campaign, called "Affermazione Civile" (Civil Affirmation)
Together with Avvocatura per i Diritti LGBT - Rete Lenford (the association of Italian lawyers for LGBT rights) we contacted and helped a number of couples to ask their City Councils to put up their banns and then to formally oppose the subsequent refusal.
Affermazione Civile has led to sentence 138/2010 of the Italian Constitutional Court that has increased the opportunity to move on to other strategic litigations. To do so we also decided to better consolidate our connection with ILGA Europe.
Today, especially after the very recent sentence of French Court on Same Sex Marriage, it has become really important to involve into “Affermazione Civile” also the couples living abroad and that are discriminated against by Italy (because their marriage/civil union/ partnership is not recognized in Italy).
Although it would be preferable that at least one of the two members of the couple was Italian, it is not strictly necessary since every European citizen may be discriminated against by Italy. In general, we could refer also to heterosexual couples, as they may be limited in their freedom of movement as well.
For these reasons, we are asking you for any help to get in contact with couples living in your country and that are discriminated against by the Italian government because of their sexual orientation or because they are not married.
Any couple willing to contact us can write directly to affermazionecivile@certidiritti.it
We also would like to check with you the option to organize a meeting in Rome during the Europride week (1-12 June 2011). This meeting could be an important occasion for the representatives of all the associations that share our purposes to get in touch and exchange ideas about future strategies and events to be planned. Since we are sure that many of you are interested in the Europride, please let us know who is willing to attend the event organized in Rome and, as a consequence, share the opportunity to join our meeting.
If you want to help us, some other ideas could be:
1) Report of our campaign in your newsletter
2) Report of our campaign in the internet site
3) Help us translate this letter in your language, so we could publish it on our internet site too (www.certidiritti.it and www.affermazionecivile.it)
4) Help us reach heterosexual couples living under civil union / civil partnership (if they are discriminated against by Italy)
5) Any other support you may want to give to us
For any further information, do not hesitate to ask Gian Mario Felicetti,
affermazionecivile@certidiritti.it
We look forward to hearing from you.
Gian Mario Felicetti
www.certidiritti.it
+39-329-9045945
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Let’s start by talking about some good news
(Marco Travaglio www.beppegrillo.it)
Good day to you all.. Salvatore Cuffaro, former Governor of Sicily, republican parliamentarian elected on the UDC ticket and who then switched to Berlusconi’s side on one of the supported nomination lists in recent months has been in jail since last Saturday to begin serving a final 7-year sentence for aggravated aiding and abetting the Cosa Nostra. He was found guilty of having tipped-off a known and previously convicted mafioso like come Giuseppe Guttadauro, the Boss of Brancaccio, as well as a businessman with suspected mafia links and convicted together with him, namely Aiello, about the fact that they were under investigation and under surveillance. In other words, for having aided and abetted their attempt to escape the ongoing investigation against them by the Palermo Prosecutors.
Cuffaro in prison
Certainly an extremely serious crime, this. A Governor, the Head of the Sicilian Regional Administration who helps an already convicted mafia boss and another who was later convicted to evade or at least try to evade an official investigation and warns them about the fact that they are under investigation and under surveillance, what next? … We never found out who told Cuffaro in the first place but the fact remains that since the other day it has been officially confirmed that he took that news and passed it straight on to the two mafiosi.
One previously convicted and the other soon to be convicted, those are the facts. It raised many eyebrows and created quite a stir to see a serving parliamentarian going into Rebibbia Prison because, as far as anyone can remember, in recent times and indeed in recent decades, the last time anything like this was seen was when Previti was taken into Rebibbia Prison to serve out a 7 and a half year sentence following his twin convictions for having bribed judges, namely in the Mondadori case and then the Mills case. However, thanks to a partial official pardon, and to a letter that she had got from Berlusconi, the former Ms. Cirielli landed up serving only 3 years of the 7 and a half year sentence in jail, with the rest being served under house arrest and even in the care of social services, in other words, in total freedom.
Compared to Previti, Cuffaro instead has a major problem because, although their sentences are much of a muchness, Previti 7,5 years and Cuffaro 7-years, tank to article 7 concerning aggravating circumstances, Cuffaro’s crime is not subject to the partial pardon, so he won’t get that 3-year discount. Therefore, Cuffaro has no hope of serving only four years of that sentence, which, with additional benefits, etc, would drop quickly to 3 years, the threshold under which the sentence can be served under the auspices of social services. As a result, unless they change the law, he will have to serve at least the first 4 years of his 7-year sentence actually in jail. Obviously his career is over, but it doesn’t end there. Within the next few days the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Palermo Court should be handing down his ruling in the other case in which the Prosecution brought charges of associating with the mafia, meaning that his aiding and abetting was not in fact a sporadic occurrence, but that this man was a politician permanently at the service of the Cosa Nostra.
And his old mentor, Mannino, did him absolutely no favours yesterday when, in an interview with a daily newspaper, he remembered how pissed off he had been when he found out that Cuffaro had approached Angelo Siino, a mafia representative on the tender allocation committee and who thus controlled a large block of votes, to ask for his votes for Mannino.
Obviously it is never a nice thing to see someone land up in jail, it’s not good news that amongst the current 70-thousand odd prison inmates, yes it’s already up there at 70-thousand, there is even one of our politicians, politicians who should be serving the interests of the people, but at least one crooked politician has landed up in the clink to serve out his sentence. It is also very sad to see how many people, many of them perhaps in good faith, have complimented Cuffaro on his restraint because he didn’t proceed to rant and rave against the magistrates and because he handed himself in for prosecution, especially since no such complements have been paid to the other 70-thousand inmates currently sitting in the Country’s prisons, many of whom have done much the same sort of thing and also did not rant and rave about any judicial plots, the politicisation of the judiciary and bullshit like that.
There is another interesting question, however, and one that we will leave to the people of the centre-left to ask, those that want to join up with Casini at all costs. What does UDC leader Casini have to say about this conviction? Some of you may well remember a certain video clip that is doing the rounds on YouTube, indeed you may want to trace that clip and link it to our Passaparola. Casini appeared on Anno Zero to create a scene, cap on his head and Michele Santoro asked him: are you prepared to swear to Cuffaro’s innocence? Casini said: Yes! He then went on to add that although he would not nominate for election anyone who was under investigation or under suspicion, except for Cuffaro, on whose innocence he was personally prepared to bet. He was prepared to personally stand by Cuffaro, an understandable position for a party leader rallying to the aid of a party member who was, after all, still deemed to be innocent at the time. However, when one backs an ally so forcefully and put’s one’s own reputation on the line, one can get badly burned, so the question now is whether or not Casini will ever be called to account for his poor judgement in backing a man who is now in jail for aiding and abetting the mafia?
What we really need is the kind of media that would be prepared to put these questions to Casini, but unfortunately that will never happen, so all we can hope is that he will once again appear on Anno Zero where Santoro, or someone else on his behalf, can call Casini to account by asking: do you remember standing up for Cuffaro? What now? Please explain! Instead, Casini can now even wipe his hands of the matter since Cuffaro was not even a member of the UDC when he went to jail, because although he was elected under the UDC banner he then chose to go with Berlusconi, who is a renowned collector of convicted criminals and gets jealous when he sees one in another party and wants him at all costs!
Another bit of good news is what happened just the other day at Lissone, near Monza. The Pdl-aligned Mayor, together with Stefania Craxi, inaugurated a town square, Piazza Bettino Craxi, on the 11th anniversary of the man’s death. Fortunately, in this day and age such things can no longer be done hush-hush because the Web is merciless and you can find out anything you want if you just go looking for it, so Piero Ricca, members of the general public and Italia dei Valori activists went along to that inauguration, where they began to shout out loud precisely what Craxi was, namely a thief, a criminal and an escapee, so much so that the ceremony that was due to be held in the town square itself had to be hurriedly moved to a theatre because Mrs. Craxi and her buddies had to make a run for it and go and hide. Meanwhile, back in the square, the name plate proclaiming “Piazza Craxi” was being replaced with a cardboard sign proclaiming “Piazza Sandro Pertini - President of all Italians”. He too was a socialist but, surprise surprise, no one remembers him because he was honest and therefore not deemed to be a good example, whereas the most remembered socialist ever also happens to be that man that single-handedly destroyed the socialist party, namely Craxi. Thank heavens for the Web, because it means that certain things can longer simply pass by unnoticed and there will always be someone to intervene, raise the alarm and draw the battle lines and as long as there is someone, even just one individual who says enough is enough, there is hope for everyone else.
Talking about Craxi, some of you - I hope very few because it takes real guts and courage – may have watched the horrendous funeral march broadcast last night on Tv7, which is the weekly version of the TG1 directed by Augusto “Minzolingua”. An horrendous seditious documentary presented by a former socialist director who has just been appointed as Director of the Mercadante Theatre in Naples by the new socialist and also berlusconian governor Caldoro. This director, I think his name is De Fusco, put together something that was so laudatory that I think even the Craxians were embarrassed, in which Craxi was compared with the likes of Jesus Christ, the stoned adulteress, Oedipus, Colonno, Antigone and Prometheus. It was something absolutely out of this world and there could have been no higher possible praise. In an hour, they managed to not even mention the word “bribery” even once. Naturally, there were also a number of previous offenders who collaborated in discussing the “greatness” of Craxi. I worked out that between them they have served about ten years of prison time, including Martelli, Carra, De Michelis, Di Donato, Pomicino, amounting to 10 years of prison time, plus another 10 years that Craxi had accumulated. Then there were also a number of unconvicted people, just for a change you understand, who added their bit, two from the Communist Party who should be proud of the difference between the Berlinguer-ites and the Caxians, but who were instead extremely apologetic for the fact that their party had opposed Craxi. One of these was Ranieri, who is trying to sidle up to Napolitano and is attempting to become Mayor of Naples, while the other was Petruccioli, former President of the dormant RAI. This just goes to show the disparity that there is between the reality in this Country, which is fortunately represented by the demonstrators in Piazza Craxi in Lissone, and the Country of the politicians, or “the bunker” as we at Il Fatto Quotidiano have called it, which is increasingly drawing in upon itself as their world crumbles around them, almost signalling the end of the world, or certainly at least the end of the Second Republic.
Craxi beatified, Berlusconi saved
The fact that Craxi is being beatified instead of being left to rest in peace 11 years on from his death makes one wonder why they are so determined in their attempts to overturn final criminal convictions, to eulogise the only politician in Italian history to ever have died while on the run? They are obviously not doing this for Craxi’s sake, after all, no one except his closet relatives really gives a damn about him. No, they’re doing it solely for the living, they eulogise Craxi in an attempt to legitimise the same behaviours exhibited by the living. So, if Craxi was a saint, then so is Berlusconi! After all, in the bars they are saying that both these men love women, they are both somewhat gung-ho with money and both are larger than life personalities. Just look at how the media has handled the matter of the investigation in the so-called Ruby case and you will realise immediately that this is heading in the same direction. Last week I said that “no one gives a damn about what Berlusconi does between the bed sheets in his own home, as long as no crime is being committed between those bed sheets and as long as no other crime is being committed in order to conceal the one committed between the bed sheets, in which case the guilty must be put on trial”. So what did they do? The arsecreeping lackeys of the company newspapers even got together at Arcore to discuss the party line, namely that laid down by Alfonso Signorini who is the most intelligent of the bunch, especially considering some of the others, like Sallusti, etc., so in that company, Signorini has an excellent mind and is very capable in terms of managing this kind of material, at least according to Chi, a magazine read by hundreds of thousands of poorly informed people, but why? Well, precisely because they read Chi. On the other hand, he also presents a television programme on Channel 5 and there he proceeds to haul out Berlusconi’s fiancée whose identity has, unsurprisingly, never been revealed, perhaps because they’re still looking for her. The reason for that is that they need to find some or other woman who is prepared to come out and say openly that she is Berlusconi’s fiancée and to confirm all these things without laughing uncontrollably, so they haven’t yet found anyone. They are busy holding auditions, but as yet they have been unable to find a woman who is prepared to state that she is Berlusconi’s fiancée without bursting out laughing!
Furthermore, she must not be an escort-girl, because that would not do any good. Imagine an escort-girl saying: I am Berlusconi’s girlfriend, I attend the parties but I swear I’m nota n escort-girl. If she were an escort-girl, no one would believe a word she says, so in fact they were searching for someone suitable amongst a number of Bulgarian and Russian women , who also cost less by the way, but they didn’t find anyone suitable even there, so the search goes on but, meanwhile, the search for Berlusconi’s fiancée has been an excellent weapon of mass distraction because that mindless part of the Italian population that sees this whole thing as an episode from a soap-opera and that have no idea whatsoever what it is all about or, for that matter, the seriousness of the situation, have all immediately fallen for the trick concerning Berlusconi’s fiancée hook, line and sinker … big headlines in Libero, in Il Giornale, which are later taken up by the editorials, and so they draw the people’s attention away from the crux of the scandal and keeping them focussed on the sideline issues of the fiancées, the gossip, the ones that say: Man! He has 20 or 30 of them at a time! What a man!. Even Belpietro said it just the other night! In this regard, I think you know why a number of girls tell the pitiful story of these queues standing in front of the Cavaliere’s bedroom door, “Next”, every five minutes, just like tat the clinic with the number in hand, like at the post office, and we’re not talking about a great lover here, this is merely a man who has had certain problems, an operation, a reconstruction and that 5 minutes, plus 5 minutes, plus 5 minutes obviously point to a problem, a pathological problem and not a great lover worthy of boasting on television, yet still they say: See? He has 20 or 30 girls a night, what a man! Other people are envious of him. Can you believe to what level the Italia media have sunk?
These are red herrings merely designed to draw attention to the least important of the issues, namely that of the sex that goes on at Arcore, which would only be of interest in one sense, namely whether or not that sex involved an underage girl and whether that sex was paid for, in which case it would constitute the crime of sexual relations with a minor. As for the rest, how many girls he has, assuming of course that he is still able to “have them” at all, to use the term preferred by those “Shakespeares” of his, or whether their breasts are exposed or not, whether or not they strip, short skirts, tight skirts, panties, g-strings, bras really makes no difference whatsoever, the only issue is whether or not there were underage girls present. Did he or did he not have sex with underage girls? Did he or did he not pay them for sex? If this is not the case, then no crime has been committed and, therefore, he is right in claiming that whatever may go on in his own house, it is entirely his own business, as long as no crime was committed and that it cannot be proven that he paid underage girls for sex and that no crime was committed in order to conceal the fact, because then even his private life becomes of public interest, albeit secondary, but why? Well, because the main issue here is still glossed over by the newspaper headlines and the television programmes, other than Anno Zero that is, namely the extortion that occurred on the night of 27th May, but why? Well, because there is no place to hide in this regard. What happened is well documented and there’s no testimony from a well-paid pimp that can deny the documentary evidence in question. Berlusconi is busy paying off all of those girls, so much so that it is becoming extremely difficult to understand whether he is paying them for services rendered at his house or for providing the Prosecutors with perjured testimony!
Thanks to the efforts of that stalwart journalist, Marco Lillo, Il Fatto Quotidiano has documented payments made up to last Monday, up to one week ago in other words, and so even after the scandal broke in all the newspapers, including a payment made to a certain Ms. Sorcinelli, while she were already talking to the investigators. Ongoing payments that went on for months and amounting to a total of 115-thousand Euro in less than a year, a very healthy managerial salary you might say. The last payment of 10-thousand Euro having been made just last Monday, after she had already spoken to the investigators. Is this another repeat of the Mills case or are these also payments for the Bunga Bunga parties? Who knows, but it is certainly interesting to note that the individual under investigation pays the witness both during and after she has testified before the investigators. But there’s nowhere to hide as regards the matter of what happened at the Police Station, but why? Well, because all telephone calls to the Police Station are recorded, and then there are the police reports detailing the course of events, so what does he do? Well he gets Piero Colaprico to do an article on what happened at the Police Station, in an attempt to shift attention to the issue of the International problem of underage prostitution, meanwhile, the main legal issue here for the Prosecutors is the extortion. While a conviction on charges of underage prostitution carries a penalty of 4 years imprisonment, that of extortion carries a maximum penalty of 12 years.
Piero Colaprico writes: “Corso Buenos Aires, 19h13, Hermes C. (a policeman) attempts to use the 113 service that records all calls to contact the child protection Prosecutor on duty, namely Anna Maria Fiorillo, to inform her of the arrest of Ruby, who had just been picked up in response to a complaint by a friend that Ruby had just stolen a few thousand Euro from her.
While waiting to be connected to Ms. Fiorillo, the policeman says to Ruby: “then I’m going to break your legs the next time I find you out on the streets”. Ruby is heard in the background, saying: “then I will come and have sex with you”. The policeman says: “no way you are going anywhere with me”. Meanwhile, the Prosecutor on duty, namely Ms. Fiorillo, arrives and the policeman explains that the girl is Moroccan, underage, who has escaped from a shelter and is accused of a theft in Milan, that she has no fixed abode and no identity documents. Ms. Fiorillo says: “could you ask the girl how she paid her rent?” in order to try to work out what she did for a living and if she at least had a steady job. The policeman agrees and asks the girl “how did you earn enough to pay your rent?” and the tells Ms. Fiorillo that: “she says that she works as a belly dancer at a number of Milan clubs”. Ms. Fiorillo says: “Oh, I get it, a belly dancer, we are not in the habit of letting underage girls go around doing this, yes, tell her that I don’t believe that she will be able to stay in Italy. She will soon come of age and if she continues the way she is going she will be expelled from the Country, unless she’s willing to enter an education program”, in other words, she must stop running away and wasting our time.
Policeman: “the computer records reveal a previous arrest for theft”. Fiorillo: “so you see, this is a wild one, so place her in a shelter, hoping that there is still one open at this time, but if they can’t take her – it’s already 19h30 – is there is any shelter that is open and that can take her, etc, then take her there” “if they won’t take her then I authorise you to hold her in custody until tomorrow morning when the emergency care service opens and can take in, there is a municipal emergency care service that finds shelters that are able to take in underage girls in trouble or to trace the girl’s father”. Up to this point, the procedures were followed to the letter, because that is precisely what happens in such cases. Obviously no one was aware of Berlusconi’s shadow behind this girl, so they were dealing with Ruby as they would have dealt with any other underage girl in this situation, namely underage girls arrested, with no fixed abode, without any identity document and without a job. They are either placed in a shelter or held at the Police Station.
These procedures work and things are always done this way. Still via the 113 service, at 20h43 the policeman advises the Police Chief on duty at the Police Station, Dr Giorgia Iafrate, who already knows the drill: “we’ll hold her here until tomorrow morning and then we’ll find a shelter for her” says Dr. Iafrate, so the policeman says: “please note that this is a little slip of a girl”, at which point Ruby starts arguing with the policeman, objecting to being labelled as ”a slip of a girl” and the policeman says: “I wasn’t being nasty, just calm down”. Dr. Iafrate intervenes by saying: “but why, what is this little girl wearing?”. Policeman: “a skimpy top, jeans and nothing else”. Ruby was somewhat underdressed, so the police had the right to take her to pick up some other clothes at the house of the friend that was hosting her, Michelle Consesao, who also happens to be a Brazilian prostitute. However, in the meantime, Michelle goes into a flat spin, so what does she do? She calls Berlusconi’s accountant, Giuseppe Spinelli, as well as Silvino Berlusconi. This Brazilian prostitute who lives in the vicinity of Corso Buenos Aires has the private cell phone number of Berlusconi, who happens to be in Paris on Government business at the time, but he doesn’t take the call because he was busy having dinner with other guests.
Berlusconi’s extortion
So she sends an SMS, by now it was 23h49, and while policeman Landolfi was busy trying to find a shelter that could take Ruby in, along comes Berlusconi’s telephone call. Colaprico writes that: Now everyone knows that Ruby was at the Police Station in Milan, a rather disturbing event at that, . Now everyone knows, so you can just imagine the confusion at the Police Station, what with Berlusconi’s telephone call from Paris and all the rest, they must have felt like the world was falling around their ears! In such situations all sorts of things can go through your mind, except that he was phoning about Ruby. We read in Police Chief Pietro Ostuni’s report that: “the Premier told me that the police station was holding a young girl of north-African descent and that he was told that she is Mubarak’s grand-daughter and that a Parliamentary Councillor by the name of Mrs. Minetti would come and take custody of the girl”. In reality, Ms. Minetti is herself a former showgirl and now a Regional Councillor that Berlusconi falsely referred to as Parliamentary Councillor and that he had told to go and pick Ruby up. Ms. Minetti would apparently take custody of the girl and look after her and that’s how the telephone call ended. At this point it is clear that Berlusconi knew only too well that the girl was underage, otherwise he would not have taken the trouble to send someone to take custody of her. If she had come of age, and they decided to release her, there would not have been any need for anyone to take custody of her since adults are responsible for themselves.
A fleet of telephone calls from Ostini then begins to rain down upon this newly qualified Policewoman Iafratti and Ostuni begins to harass Iafratti. From Police Chief Vincenzo Indolfi’s official report, we read that “I became concerned about whether or not this underage girl’s case had been handled properly. The fact that the Prime Minister told a lie was not so important to me”. So the Police Chief of Milan reports that The Prime Minister lied when he said that Ruby was Mubarak’s grand-daughter, and thereby hinted that this could lead to an International incident, upset the entire Police Station, causing them to do something that they would not otherwise have done if there had been no telephone call, but why? Well, because everything was proceeding as normal in such cases, in other words, either the girl would have been placed in a shelter or she would have remained at the Police Station until she could be placed in a shelter.
Indolfi says: “The fact that Berlusconi lied to us was neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned, I merely wanted to make sure that the proper procedures had been followed”. However, from that moment on, nothing went according to plan. A fax was sent to a shelter in Sicily, one of the shelters where she had previously stayed. But the cops’ report tells a different story. Ruby was released at 02h00, accompanied by Ms. Minetti who, instead of taking care of the girl as Berlusconi stated she would, simply dumped her onto Michelle Consesao, thus putting her back in the hands of another prostitute, and Berlusconi says: “I stepped in to save this girl”! In other words, to save her from the Police, Berlusconi has Minetti deliver her to a prostitute, what a great rescue that is! They simply put her back on the streets! To save her from the Police, not from prostitution, they send her back to work as a prostitute, the Prime Minister and an appointed Regional Councillor, or so-called parliamentary councillor!
So while Ruby was released into Ms. Minetti’s custody at 02h00, back at the Police Station they continued to track her identity, which they should have done prior to re leasing her. Finally, at 4am they managed to trace her parents who live in a ?Letojanni? in Messina Province if I’m not mistaken. Upon being unceremoniously pulled out of bed, her parents state that they don’t have their daughter’s identity document and they say that they are in no way related to Mubarak. No surprise there since they are Moroccan and Mubarak is President of Egypt!
Another little-known detail is that when Ms. Bocassini and the other Prosecutors questioned Ostuni, they asked: “Why does this report make no mention of the telephone call from the Prime Minister, nor of the lie that was told to the policemen?” Colaprico notes that Ostuni could not answer and couldn’t account for this fact, so the report was incomplete, but if anyone else had dreamed up such a lie, what police action would have resulted? Was it perhaps his position as the Head of Government that enabled Berlusconi to get something that is not granted to us mere mortals?
Obviously this is the problem. The facts are what they are, this much we understand. The Police Station did something that they would never have done were it not for Berlusconi’s phone call. The other night on television, Belpietro, who knows absolutely nothing about the law, said that: “If there was indeed any collusion, then the Prosecutors should charge the Police Officials who released Ruby prior to having confirmed her real identity and countermanding the orders given by the Prosecutor on duty. If they didn’t incriminate these officials the nit means that everything occurred as normal, and if everything occurred as normal, the nit means that there was no extortion by Berlusconi. Extortion is when one individual threatens another in order to get him/her to do something he/she shouldn’t do, so if there was nothing untoward done, then there was obviously no extortion.
The problem is that the crime of extortion is not committed by both the extortionist and the victim. The extortionist is the one committing the crime, while the individual being threatened is the victim and if he/she is forced to do something he/she shouldn’t do, then he/she is a victim and should not be prosecuted. It’s exactly the same situation as someone who pays protection money to the mafia, where the conclusion is the extortion committed by a public official. If I as a mafioso force a trader to pay me protection money and the trader gives me money, thus funding a mafia member, what is that? Aiding and abetting the Mafia? Yet he does not get punished, but why? Well, because he acted under extreme pressure, so he/she is a victim. That’s why the police officers that were pressured are not being prosecuted for re leasing Ruby.
These are the facts that demonstrate monumental abuse of power and a judge must decide whether or not a crime has been committed, however, we can nevertheless say that it was abuse of power since we have a blow-by-blow account of exactly what happened that night. This abuse of power constitutes sufficient grounds for the Milan Prosecution to take action. The next question is whether or not this was a ministerial crime? Be very careful here because this can easily turn into a play on words, but the situation is actually very clear indeed. A Ministerial crime is different from a normal crime, but why? Well, because in the case of a ministerial crime, prior authorisation is required from Parliament in order to prosecute the perpetrator, that’s because in order for any member of the Premier’s Government or other Minister to be prosecuted for any crimes committed whilst carrying out their official duties, permission to proceed must first be obtained from Parliament and, given that we know exactly who is in Parliament, there would be no trial since Parliament would most certainly deny permission for the Ministerial Court to try Berlusconi who they will rule was merely carrying out his duties according to the Constitution.
But what does “carrying out his duties” actually mean? It means doing that which is required of a Prime Minister, but does that include phoning Police Stations and telling them what to do with underage Moroccan girls arrested for theft, without fixed abode, with no identity documents, etc.? No, this is certainly not amongst the Prime Minister’s official duties. Now I don’t know if it perhaps falls within the scope of the duties of the Minister for Internal Affairs, I don’t believe so, but it is certainly not the Prime Minister’s duty, not in his official capacity anyway, and when he made that telephone call, he didn’t say “I’m Joe Soap”, he said “I’m the Prime Minister and it’s obvious that he phoned in his official capacity, so what now? So it’s no longer classified as abuse of power because that’s not part of his job. It’s now called abuse of office. He abused his position as Prime Minister , so it’s no longer a matter requiring permission to proceed, in which case he would have been safe because such permission would undoubtedly have been denied. Instead, he abused the Office of Prime Minister in order to do something that is certainly not part of his job, even though he did so as the incumbent Prime Minister, otherwise he would not have frightened anyone into doing anything, get it? If I, as a magistrate or a policeman, go into a restaurant and say “give me a free meal or I will arrest you” and it is obviously within your powers to arrest someone, then I’m abusing my official powers.
If, instead, as a policeman I walk into a shop and say give me money otherwise I’ll clout you, clouting someone is not within my powers as policeman, so now do you understand the fine distinction at play here?
So there is no doubt that this does not qualify as a Ministerial crime and, as a normal crime, the jurisdiction lies with the Milan Court, without any permission required from Parliament.
Finally, what happens next? The question is will they or won’t they prosecute him? How can he get away with it? How can he wangle his way out of this one? What is the story with the expedited proceedings, what could happen? I conclude by explaining what could happen now.
The Milan Prosecution has asked for the expedited procedure, or rather they have announced that they will be applying for the expedited procedure, as contemplated in Art. 453 of the Criminal Code and Procedure, which provides for an immediate trial in the case of extreme urgency, but when and where does this apply? Well, it applies when the Prosecution has such indisputable proof that the normal preliminary steps, like preliminary hearings, etc. become irrelevant. The case goes straight to trial based on all the evidence that has been gathered, so the case immediately goes before the appointed judge.
Expedited prosecution for Berlusconi
When the evidence is apparently overwhelming, an expedited trial can be requested once the person under investigation has been questioned regarding the overwhelming evidence, or after the individual has failed to appear after being summonsed, subject to legitimate impediment, or where the person is untraceable, so what did the Prosecution do? They summonsed Berlusconi to appear whenever it suited him anytime between Friday and Sunday, namely the 21/22/23 January. He failed to appear, even on the Sunday and there did not appear to be any legitimate impediment. At that point they said: okay, you have chosen not to come in for questioning, the conditions have been met, we believe that the evidence we have against you is overwhelming, so now the third and last requirement is that the Prosecutors must formulate their charges within 90 days after the registration of the crime. Berlusconi name was entered into the register on 21 December, so the Prosecutors have until 21 March to lodge their application for an expedited trial with the Preliminary Investigations Magistrate. One month has already passed, so the Prosecutors still have two months to lodge their application, at which point the Preliminary Investigations Magistrate may grant the request if he feels that the grounds are sufficient and thus remand Berlusconi for immediate trial.
Within five days after submission of the request, the judge must either issue a decree providing for immediate trial and order that the documentation be sent to the Prosecution, or decide that there are insufficient grounds for an immediate trial and order that the normal prosecution process be used, including preliminary hearings and the usual remand for trial or absolution. The Decree issued must also specify that the accused can ask for an expedited trial or try to plea-bargain, which would mean that everything is done entirely in chambers, behind closed doors, without any television cameras, without any journalists and without any witnesses, so what happens is that the trial will be based entirely on the available documentation, there is not much discussion at all and plea-bargains can be struck, however, I doubt very much whether Berlusconi would ever agree to a plea-bargain, that’s the last thing on his mind!
Once an expedited trial has been arranged, the proceeding take place in Court according to the same rules as a normal trial, except that everything is done more quickly, skipping the preliminary hearings and the submission of evidence. At this point, however, they are claiming that the Milan Court doesn’t have jurisdiction because Arcore falls under Monza. Besides the fact that the Monza Court’s jurisdiction does not extend to underage prostitution cases, for which the District Prosecutions have jurisdiction, in this case the Milan Prosecution, the events that took place at the Police Station fall squarely under the jurisdiction of the Milan Court, so their only hope is to get the case handed over to the Ministerial Court, but there is no way that this case can be handed over to the Ministerial Court, but why? Well, because neither Berlusconi nor Ghedini can get the case moved to the Ministerial Court, only the Prosecution can do that and they’ve already made it clear that this was not a Ministerial crime in their opinion.. Furthermore, I forgot to mention that constitutional Law No. 1/1991 stipulates that for a crime to be classified as a Ministerial crime, it must have been committed in the significant interests of the State, in other words, in order to further the aims of public interest, that’s what constitutional law No. 1, dated 16 January 1991, states that governs ministerial crimes. You can imagine if underage prostitution or telephone calls to a Police Station to demand someone’s release, bypassing normal procedures, could ever be covered by such a law. It has to have been done in the Public interest, and in this case it was more like Pubic interest than Public Interest!
So there is no possible reason, or for that matter any other way by which Berlusconi could get his case heard in the Ministerial Court, so what else can he do? He has already threatened to raise an issue of a conflict of interests between the judiciary and the State before the Constitutional Court, citing the Milan judges that are refusing to allow the case to be heard in the Ministerial Court, some may say: but if Berlusconi or his attorneys use their parliamentary majority to force the issue and drag the Milan judges before the Constitutional Committee for refusing to allow the case to be heard by the Ministerial Court, then what will come of this case? Well, there would be no valid grounds for the Constitutional Committee to rule on such a patently bullshit claim anyway, but given the slow pace at which the Constitutional Committee operates, irrespective of whether they find for Chamber of Deputies or for the Milan judges, what would happen in the meantime as regards the expedited trial? Does it continue or is it suspended? Because if Berlusconi somehow manages to get his conflict of power claim to stop the trial for the next two years, then so much for expedited trials and so it’s back to square one!
Fortunately for us, however, such a claim before the Constitutional Committee would not hold up or suspend the expedited trial, which would continue in any event. It’s already happened before with conflict of poker claims against the Milan Prosecution in the Abu Omar case, yet the trial continues and it stops just short of handing down sentence in order to await the ruling of the Constitutional Court, so Berlusconi’s case will go ahead anyway, even if the conflict of powers issue is raised and only the final ruling will be withheld until the Constitutional Court has reached its decision.
I hope I have managed to clarify the issue for you, so let’s just say that this time it really looks as if Berlusconi is balls to the wall, barring any other tricks that neither we nor Berlusconi have thought about yet and he will have to defend himself, not against allegations but against facts, starting with what he really did that night at the Police Station.
Good day to you all.. Salvatore Cuffaro, former Governor of Sicily, republican parliamentarian elected on the UDC ticket and who then switched to Berlusconi’s side on one of the supported nomination lists in recent months has been in jail since last Saturday to begin serving a final 7-year sentence for aggravated aiding and abetting the Cosa Nostra. He was found guilty of having tipped-off a known and previously convicted mafioso like come Giuseppe Guttadauro, the Boss of Brancaccio, as well as a businessman with suspected mafia links and convicted together with him, namely Aiello, about the fact that they were under investigation and under surveillance. In other words, for having aided and abetted their attempt to escape the ongoing investigation against them by the Palermo Prosecutors.
Cuffaro in prison
Certainly an extremely serious crime, this. A Governor, the Head of the Sicilian Regional Administration who helps an already convicted mafia boss and another who was later convicted to evade or at least try to evade an official investigation and warns them about the fact that they are under investigation and under surveillance, what next? … We never found out who told Cuffaro in the first place but the fact remains that since the other day it has been officially confirmed that he took that news and passed it straight on to the two mafiosi.
One previously convicted and the other soon to be convicted, those are the facts. It raised many eyebrows and created quite a stir to see a serving parliamentarian going into Rebibbia Prison because, as far as anyone can remember, in recent times and indeed in recent decades, the last time anything like this was seen was when Previti was taken into Rebibbia Prison to serve out a 7 and a half year sentence following his twin convictions for having bribed judges, namely in the Mondadori case and then the Mills case. However, thanks to a partial official pardon, and to a letter that she had got from Berlusconi, the former Ms. Cirielli landed up serving only 3 years of the 7 and a half year sentence in jail, with the rest being served under house arrest and even in the care of social services, in other words, in total freedom.
Compared to Previti, Cuffaro instead has a major problem because, although their sentences are much of a muchness, Previti 7,5 years and Cuffaro 7-years, tank to article 7 concerning aggravating circumstances, Cuffaro’s crime is not subject to the partial pardon, so he won’t get that 3-year discount. Therefore, Cuffaro has no hope of serving only four years of that sentence, which, with additional benefits, etc, would drop quickly to 3 years, the threshold under which the sentence can be served under the auspices of social services. As a result, unless they change the law, he will have to serve at least the first 4 years of his 7-year sentence actually in jail. Obviously his career is over, but it doesn’t end there. Within the next few days the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Palermo Court should be handing down his ruling in the other case in which the Prosecution brought charges of associating with the mafia, meaning that his aiding and abetting was not in fact a sporadic occurrence, but that this man was a politician permanently at the service of the Cosa Nostra.
And his old mentor, Mannino, did him absolutely no favours yesterday when, in an interview with a daily newspaper, he remembered how pissed off he had been when he found out that Cuffaro had approached Angelo Siino, a mafia representative on the tender allocation committee and who thus controlled a large block of votes, to ask for his votes for Mannino.
Obviously it is never a nice thing to see someone land up in jail, it’s not good news that amongst the current 70-thousand odd prison inmates, yes it’s already up there at 70-thousand, there is even one of our politicians, politicians who should be serving the interests of the people, but at least one crooked politician has landed up in the clink to serve out his sentence. It is also very sad to see how many people, many of them perhaps in good faith, have complimented Cuffaro on his restraint because he didn’t proceed to rant and rave against the magistrates and because he handed himself in for prosecution, especially since no such complements have been paid to the other 70-thousand inmates currently sitting in the Country’s prisons, many of whom have done much the same sort of thing and also did not rant and rave about any judicial plots, the politicisation of the judiciary and bullshit like that.
There is another interesting question, however, and one that we will leave to the people of the centre-left to ask, those that want to join up with Casini at all costs. What does UDC leader Casini have to say about this conviction? Some of you may well remember a certain video clip that is doing the rounds on YouTube, indeed you may want to trace that clip and link it to our Passaparola. Casini appeared on Anno Zero to create a scene, cap on his head and Michele Santoro asked him: are you prepared to swear to Cuffaro’s innocence? Casini said: Yes! He then went on to add that although he would not nominate for election anyone who was under investigation or under suspicion, except for Cuffaro, on whose innocence he was personally prepared to bet. He was prepared to personally stand by Cuffaro, an understandable position for a party leader rallying to the aid of a party member who was, after all, still deemed to be innocent at the time. However, when one backs an ally so forcefully and put’s one’s own reputation on the line, one can get badly burned, so the question now is whether or not Casini will ever be called to account for his poor judgement in backing a man who is now in jail for aiding and abetting the mafia?
What we really need is the kind of media that would be prepared to put these questions to Casini, but unfortunately that will never happen, so all we can hope is that he will once again appear on Anno Zero where Santoro, or someone else on his behalf, can call Casini to account by asking: do you remember standing up for Cuffaro? What now? Please explain! Instead, Casini can now even wipe his hands of the matter since Cuffaro was not even a member of the UDC when he went to jail, because although he was elected under the UDC banner he then chose to go with Berlusconi, who is a renowned collector of convicted criminals and gets jealous when he sees one in another party and wants him at all costs!
Another bit of good news is what happened just the other day at Lissone, near Monza. The Pdl-aligned Mayor, together with Stefania Craxi, inaugurated a town square, Piazza Bettino Craxi, on the 11th anniversary of the man’s death. Fortunately, in this day and age such things can no longer be done hush-hush because the Web is merciless and you can find out anything you want if you just go looking for it, so Piero Ricca, members of the general public and Italia dei Valori activists went along to that inauguration, where they began to shout out loud precisely what Craxi was, namely a thief, a criminal and an escapee, so much so that the ceremony that was due to be held in the town square itself had to be hurriedly moved to a theatre because Mrs. Craxi and her buddies had to make a run for it and go and hide. Meanwhile, back in the square, the name plate proclaiming “Piazza Craxi” was being replaced with a cardboard sign proclaiming “Piazza Sandro Pertini - President of all Italians”. He too was a socialist but, surprise surprise, no one remembers him because he was honest and therefore not deemed to be a good example, whereas the most remembered socialist ever also happens to be that man that single-handedly destroyed the socialist party, namely Craxi. Thank heavens for the Web, because it means that certain things can longer simply pass by unnoticed and there will always be someone to intervene, raise the alarm and draw the battle lines and as long as there is someone, even just one individual who says enough is enough, there is hope for everyone else.
Talking about Craxi, some of you - I hope very few because it takes real guts and courage – may have watched the horrendous funeral march broadcast last night on Tv7, which is the weekly version of the TG1 directed by Augusto “Minzolingua”. An horrendous seditious documentary presented by a former socialist director who has just been appointed as Director of the Mercadante Theatre in Naples by the new socialist and also berlusconian governor Caldoro. This director, I think his name is De Fusco, put together something that was so laudatory that I think even the Craxians were embarrassed, in which Craxi was compared with the likes of Jesus Christ, the stoned adulteress, Oedipus, Colonno, Antigone and Prometheus. It was something absolutely out of this world and there could have been no higher possible praise. In an hour, they managed to not even mention the word “bribery” even once. Naturally, there were also a number of previous offenders who collaborated in discussing the “greatness” of Craxi. I worked out that between them they have served about ten years of prison time, including Martelli, Carra, De Michelis, Di Donato, Pomicino, amounting to 10 years of prison time, plus another 10 years that Craxi had accumulated. Then there were also a number of unconvicted people, just for a change you understand, who added their bit, two from the Communist Party who should be proud of the difference between the Berlinguer-ites and the Caxians, but who were instead extremely apologetic for the fact that their party had opposed Craxi. One of these was Ranieri, who is trying to sidle up to Napolitano and is attempting to become Mayor of Naples, while the other was Petruccioli, former President of the dormant RAI. This just goes to show the disparity that there is between the reality in this Country, which is fortunately represented by the demonstrators in Piazza Craxi in Lissone, and the Country of the politicians, or “the bunker” as we at Il Fatto Quotidiano have called it, which is increasingly drawing in upon itself as their world crumbles around them, almost signalling the end of the world, or certainly at least the end of the Second Republic.
Craxi beatified, Berlusconi saved
The fact that Craxi is being beatified instead of being left to rest in peace 11 years on from his death makes one wonder why they are so determined in their attempts to overturn final criminal convictions, to eulogise the only politician in Italian history to ever have died while on the run? They are obviously not doing this for Craxi’s sake, after all, no one except his closet relatives really gives a damn about him. No, they’re doing it solely for the living, they eulogise Craxi in an attempt to legitimise the same behaviours exhibited by the living. So, if Craxi was a saint, then so is Berlusconi! After all, in the bars they are saying that both these men love women, they are both somewhat gung-ho with money and both are larger than life personalities. Just look at how the media has handled the matter of the investigation in the so-called Ruby case and you will realise immediately that this is heading in the same direction. Last week I said that “no one gives a damn about what Berlusconi does between the bed sheets in his own home, as long as no crime is being committed between those bed sheets and as long as no other crime is being committed in order to conceal the one committed between the bed sheets, in which case the guilty must be put on trial”. So what did they do? The arsecreeping lackeys of the company newspapers even got together at Arcore to discuss the party line, namely that laid down by Alfonso Signorini who is the most intelligent of the bunch, especially considering some of the others, like Sallusti, etc., so in that company, Signorini has an excellent mind and is very capable in terms of managing this kind of material, at least according to Chi, a magazine read by hundreds of thousands of poorly informed people, but why? Well, precisely because they read Chi. On the other hand, he also presents a television programme on Channel 5 and there he proceeds to haul out Berlusconi’s fiancée whose identity has, unsurprisingly, never been revealed, perhaps because they’re still looking for her. The reason for that is that they need to find some or other woman who is prepared to come out and say openly that she is Berlusconi’s fiancée and to confirm all these things without laughing uncontrollably, so they haven’t yet found anyone. They are busy holding auditions, but as yet they have been unable to find a woman who is prepared to state that she is Berlusconi’s fiancée without bursting out laughing!
Furthermore, she must not be an escort-girl, because that would not do any good. Imagine an escort-girl saying: I am Berlusconi’s girlfriend, I attend the parties but I swear I’m nota n escort-girl. If she were an escort-girl, no one would believe a word she says, so in fact they were searching for someone suitable amongst a number of Bulgarian and Russian women , who also cost less by the way, but they didn’t find anyone suitable even there, so the search goes on but, meanwhile, the search for Berlusconi’s fiancée has been an excellent weapon of mass distraction because that mindless part of the Italian population that sees this whole thing as an episode from a soap-opera and that have no idea whatsoever what it is all about or, for that matter, the seriousness of the situation, have all immediately fallen for the trick concerning Berlusconi’s fiancée hook, line and sinker … big headlines in Libero, in Il Giornale, which are later taken up by the editorials, and so they draw the people’s attention away from the crux of the scandal and keeping them focussed on the sideline issues of the fiancées, the gossip, the ones that say: Man! He has 20 or 30 of them at a time! What a man!. Even Belpietro said it just the other night! In this regard, I think you know why a number of girls tell the pitiful story of these queues standing in front of the Cavaliere’s bedroom door, “Next”, every five minutes, just like tat the clinic with the number in hand, like at the post office, and we’re not talking about a great lover here, this is merely a man who has had certain problems, an operation, a reconstruction and that 5 minutes, plus 5 minutes, plus 5 minutes obviously point to a problem, a pathological problem and not a great lover worthy of boasting on television, yet still they say: See? He has 20 or 30 girls a night, what a man! Other people are envious of him. Can you believe to what level the Italia media have sunk?
These are red herrings merely designed to draw attention to the least important of the issues, namely that of the sex that goes on at Arcore, which would only be of interest in one sense, namely whether or not that sex involved an underage girl and whether that sex was paid for, in which case it would constitute the crime of sexual relations with a minor. As for the rest, how many girls he has, assuming of course that he is still able to “have them” at all, to use the term preferred by those “Shakespeares” of his, or whether their breasts are exposed or not, whether or not they strip, short skirts, tight skirts, panties, g-strings, bras really makes no difference whatsoever, the only issue is whether or not there were underage girls present. Did he or did he not have sex with underage girls? Did he or did he not pay them for sex? If this is not the case, then no crime has been committed and, therefore, he is right in claiming that whatever may go on in his own house, it is entirely his own business, as long as no crime was committed and that it cannot be proven that he paid underage girls for sex and that no crime was committed in order to conceal the fact, because then even his private life becomes of public interest, albeit secondary, but why? Well, because the main issue here is still glossed over by the newspaper headlines and the television programmes, other than Anno Zero that is, namely the extortion that occurred on the night of 27th May, but why? Well, because there is no place to hide in this regard. What happened is well documented and there’s no testimony from a well-paid pimp that can deny the documentary evidence in question. Berlusconi is busy paying off all of those girls, so much so that it is becoming extremely difficult to understand whether he is paying them for services rendered at his house or for providing the Prosecutors with perjured testimony!
Thanks to the efforts of that stalwart journalist, Marco Lillo, Il Fatto Quotidiano has documented payments made up to last Monday, up to one week ago in other words, and so even after the scandal broke in all the newspapers, including a payment made to a certain Ms. Sorcinelli, while she were already talking to the investigators. Ongoing payments that went on for months and amounting to a total of 115-thousand Euro in less than a year, a very healthy managerial salary you might say. The last payment of 10-thousand Euro having been made just last Monday, after she had already spoken to the investigators. Is this another repeat of the Mills case or are these also payments for the Bunga Bunga parties? Who knows, but it is certainly interesting to note that the individual under investigation pays the witness both during and after she has testified before the investigators. But there’s nowhere to hide as regards the matter of what happened at the Police Station, but why? Well, because all telephone calls to the Police Station are recorded, and then there are the police reports detailing the course of events, so what does he do? Well he gets Piero Colaprico to do an article on what happened at the Police Station, in an attempt to shift attention to the issue of the International problem of underage prostitution, meanwhile, the main legal issue here for the Prosecutors is the extortion. While a conviction on charges of underage prostitution carries a penalty of 4 years imprisonment, that of extortion carries a maximum penalty of 12 years.
Piero Colaprico writes: “Corso Buenos Aires, 19h13, Hermes C. (a policeman) attempts to use the 113 service that records all calls to contact the child protection Prosecutor on duty, namely Anna Maria Fiorillo, to inform her of the arrest of Ruby, who had just been picked up in response to a complaint by a friend that Ruby had just stolen a few thousand Euro from her.
While waiting to be connected to Ms. Fiorillo, the policeman says to Ruby: “then I’m going to break your legs the next time I find you out on the streets”. Ruby is heard in the background, saying: “then I will come and have sex with you”. The policeman says: “no way you are going anywhere with me”. Meanwhile, the Prosecutor on duty, namely Ms. Fiorillo, arrives and the policeman explains that the girl is Moroccan, underage, who has escaped from a shelter and is accused of a theft in Milan, that she has no fixed abode and no identity documents. Ms. Fiorillo says: “could you ask the girl how she paid her rent?” in order to try to work out what she did for a living and if she at least had a steady job. The policeman agrees and asks the girl “how did you earn enough to pay your rent?” and the tells Ms. Fiorillo that: “she says that she works as a belly dancer at a number of Milan clubs”. Ms. Fiorillo says: “Oh, I get it, a belly dancer, we are not in the habit of letting underage girls go around doing this, yes, tell her that I don’t believe that she will be able to stay in Italy. She will soon come of age and if she continues the way she is going she will be expelled from the Country, unless she’s willing to enter an education program”, in other words, she must stop running away and wasting our time.
Policeman: “the computer records reveal a previous arrest for theft”. Fiorillo: “so you see, this is a wild one, so place her in a shelter, hoping that there is still one open at this time, but if they can’t take her – it’s already 19h30 – is there is any shelter that is open and that can take her, etc, then take her there” “if they won’t take her then I authorise you to hold her in custody until tomorrow morning when the emergency care service opens and can take in, there is a municipal emergency care service that finds shelters that are able to take in underage girls in trouble or to trace the girl’s father”. Up to this point, the procedures were followed to the letter, because that is precisely what happens in such cases. Obviously no one was aware of Berlusconi’s shadow behind this girl, so they were dealing with Ruby as they would have dealt with any other underage girl in this situation, namely underage girls arrested, with no fixed abode, without any identity document and without a job. They are either placed in a shelter or held at the Police Station.
These procedures work and things are always done this way. Still via the 113 service, at 20h43 the policeman advises the Police Chief on duty at the Police Station, Dr Giorgia Iafrate, who already knows the drill: “we’ll hold her here until tomorrow morning and then we’ll find a shelter for her” says Dr. Iafrate, so the policeman says: “please note that this is a little slip of a girl”, at which point Ruby starts arguing with the policeman, objecting to being labelled as ”a slip of a girl” and the policeman says: “I wasn’t being nasty, just calm down”. Dr. Iafrate intervenes by saying: “but why, what is this little girl wearing?”. Policeman: “a skimpy top, jeans and nothing else”. Ruby was somewhat underdressed, so the police had the right to take her to pick up some other clothes at the house of the friend that was hosting her, Michelle Consesao, who also happens to be a Brazilian prostitute. However, in the meantime, Michelle goes into a flat spin, so what does she do? She calls Berlusconi’s accountant, Giuseppe Spinelli, as well as Silvino Berlusconi. This Brazilian prostitute who lives in the vicinity of Corso Buenos Aires has the private cell phone number of Berlusconi, who happens to be in Paris on Government business at the time, but he doesn’t take the call because he was busy having dinner with other guests.
Berlusconi’s extortion
So she sends an SMS, by now it was 23h49, and while policeman Landolfi was busy trying to find a shelter that could take Ruby in, along comes Berlusconi’s telephone call. Colaprico writes that: Now everyone knows that Ruby was at the Police Station in Milan, a rather disturbing event at that, . Now everyone knows, so you can just imagine the confusion at the Police Station, what with Berlusconi’s telephone call from Paris and all the rest, they must have felt like the world was falling around their ears! In such situations all sorts of things can go through your mind, except that he was phoning about Ruby. We read in Police Chief Pietro Ostuni’s report that: “the Premier told me that the police station was holding a young girl of north-African descent and that he was told that she is Mubarak’s grand-daughter and that a Parliamentary Councillor by the name of Mrs. Minetti would come and take custody of the girl”. In reality, Ms. Minetti is herself a former showgirl and now a Regional Councillor that Berlusconi falsely referred to as Parliamentary Councillor and that he had told to go and pick Ruby up. Ms. Minetti would apparently take custody of the girl and look after her and that’s how the telephone call ended. At this point it is clear that Berlusconi knew only too well that the girl was underage, otherwise he would not have taken the trouble to send someone to take custody of her. If she had come of age, and they decided to release her, there would not have been any need for anyone to take custody of her since adults are responsible for themselves.
A fleet of telephone calls from Ostini then begins to rain down upon this newly qualified Policewoman Iafratti and Ostuni begins to harass Iafratti. From Police Chief Vincenzo Indolfi’s official report, we read that “I became concerned about whether or not this underage girl’s case had been handled properly. The fact that the Prime Minister told a lie was not so important to me”. So the Police Chief of Milan reports that The Prime Minister lied when he said that Ruby was Mubarak’s grand-daughter, and thereby hinted that this could lead to an International incident, upset the entire Police Station, causing them to do something that they would not otherwise have done if there had been no telephone call, but why? Well, because everything was proceeding as normal in such cases, in other words, either the girl would have been placed in a shelter or she would have remained at the Police Station until she could be placed in a shelter.
Indolfi says: “The fact that Berlusconi lied to us was neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned, I merely wanted to make sure that the proper procedures had been followed”. However, from that moment on, nothing went according to plan. A fax was sent to a shelter in Sicily, one of the shelters where she had previously stayed. But the cops’ report tells a different story. Ruby was released at 02h00, accompanied by Ms. Minetti who, instead of taking care of the girl as Berlusconi stated she would, simply dumped her onto Michelle Consesao, thus putting her back in the hands of another prostitute, and Berlusconi says: “I stepped in to save this girl”! In other words, to save her from the Police, Berlusconi has Minetti deliver her to a prostitute, what a great rescue that is! They simply put her back on the streets! To save her from the Police, not from prostitution, they send her back to work as a prostitute, the Prime Minister and an appointed Regional Councillor, or so-called parliamentary councillor!
So while Ruby was released into Ms. Minetti’s custody at 02h00, back at the Police Station they continued to track her identity, which they should have done prior to re leasing her. Finally, at 4am they managed to trace her parents who live in a ?Letojanni? in Messina Province if I’m not mistaken. Upon being unceremoniously pulled out of bed, her parents state that they don’t have their daughter’s identity document and they say that they are in no way related to Mubarak. No surprise there since they are Moroccan and Mubarak is President of Egypt!
Another little-known detail is that when Ms. Bocassini and the other Prosecutors questioned Ostuni, they asked: “Why does this report make no mention of the telephone call from the Prime Minister, nor of the lie that was told to the policemen?” Colaprico notes that Ostuni could not answer and couldn’t account for this fact, so the report was incomplete, but if anyone else had dreamed up such a lie, what police action would have resulted? Was it perhaps his position as the Head of Government that enabled Berlusconi to get something that is not granted to us mere mortals?
Obviously this is the problem. The facts are what they are, this much we understand. The Police Station did something that they would never have done were it not for Berlusconi’s phone call. The other night on television, Belpietro, who knows absolutely nothing about the law, said that: “If there was indeed any collusion, then the Prosecutors should charge the Police Officials who released Ruby prior to having confirmed her real identity and countermanding the orders given by the Prosecutor on duty. If they didn’t incriminate these officials the nit means that everything occurred as normal, and if everything occurred as normal, the nit means that there was no extortion by Berlusconi. Extortion is when one individual threatens another in order to get him/her to do something he/she shouldn’t do, so if there was nothing untoward done, then there was obviously no extortion.
The problem is that the crime of extortion is not committed by both the extortionist and the victim. The extortionist is the one committing the crime, while the individual being threatened is the victim and if he/she is forced to do something he/she shouldn’t do, then he/she is a victim and should not be prosecuted. It’s exactly the same situation as someone who pays protection money to the mafia, where the conclusion is the extortion committed by a public official. If I as a mafioso force a trader to pay me protection money and the trader gives me money, thus funding a mafia member, what is that? Aiding and abetting the Mafia? Yet he does not get punished, but why? Well, because he acted under extreme pressure, so he/she is a victim. That’s why the police officers that were pressured are not being prosecuted for re leasing Ruby.
These are the facts that demonstrate monumental abuse of power and a judge must decide whether or not a crime has been committed, however, we can nevertheless say that it was abuse of power since we have a blow-by-blow account of exactly what happened that night. This abuse of power constitutes sufficient grounds for the Milan Prosecution to take action. The next question is whether or not this was a ministerial crime? Be very careful here because this can easily turn into a play on words, but the situation is actually very clear indeed. A Ministerial crime is different from a normal crime, but why? Well, because in the case of a ministerial crime, prior authorisation is required from Parliament in order to prosecute the perpetrator, that’s because in order for any member of the Premier’s Government or other Minister to be prosecuted for any crimes committed whilst carrying out their official duties, permission to proceed must first be obtained from Parliament and, given that we know exactly who is in Parliament, there would be no trial since Parliament would most certainly deny permission for the Ministerial Court to try Berlusconi who they will rule was merely carrying out his duties according to the Constitution.
But what does “carrying out his duties” actually mean? It means doing that which is required of a Prime Minister, but does that include phoning Police Stations and telling them what to do with underage Moroccan girls arrested for theft, without fixed abode, with no identity documents, etc.? No, this is certainly not amongst the Prime Minister’s official duties. Now I don’t know if it perhaps falls within the scope of the duties of the Minister for Internal Affairs, I don’t believe so, but it is certainly not the Prime Minister’s duty, not in his official capacity anyway, and when he made that telephone call, he didn’t say “I’m Joe Soap”, he said “I’m the Prime Minister and it’s obvious that he phoned in his official capacity, so what now? So it’s no longer classified as abuse of power because that’s not part of his job. It’s now called abuse of office. He abused his position as Prime Minister , so it’s no longer a matter requiring permission to proceed, in which case he would have been safe because such permission would undoubtedly have been denied. Instead, he abused the Office of Prime Minister in order to do something that is certainly not part of his job, even though he did so as the incumbent Prime Minister, otherwise he would not have frightened anyone into doing anything, get it? If I, as a magistrate or a policeman, go into a restaurant and say “give me a free meal or I will arrest you” and it is obviously within your powers to arrest someone, then I’m abusing my official powers.
If, instead, as a policeman I walk into a shop and say give me money otherwise I’ll clout you, clouting someone is not within my powers as policeman, so now do you understand the fine distinction at play here?
So there is no doubt that this does not qualify as a Ministerial crime and, as a normal crime, the jurisdiction lies with the Milan Court, without any permission required from Parliament.
Finally, what happens next? The question is will they or won’t they prosecute him? How can he get away with it? How can he wangle his way out of this one? What is the story with the expedited proceedings, what could happen? I conclude by explaining what could happen now.
The Milan Prosecution has asked for the expedited procedure, or rather they have announced that they will be applying for the expedited procedure, as contemplated in Art. 453 of the Criminal Code and Procedure, which provides for an immediate trial in the case of extreme urgency, but when and where does this apply? Well, it applies when the Prosecution has such indisputable proof that the normal preliminary steps, like preliminary hearings, etc. become irrelevant. The case goes straight to trial based on all the evidence that has been gathered, so the case immediately goes before the appointed judge.
Expedited prosecution for Berlusconi
When the evidence is apparently overwhelming, an expedited trial can be requested once the person under investigation has been questioned regarding the overwhelming evidence, or after the individual has failed to appear after being summonsed, subject to legitimate impediment, or where the person is untraceable, so what did the Prosecution do? They summonsed Berlusconi to appear whenever it suited him anytime between Friday and Sunday, namely the 21/22/23 January. He failed to appear, even on the Sunday and there did not appear to be any legitimate impediment. At that point they said: okay, you have chosen not to come in for questioning, the conditions have been met, we believe that the evidence we have against you is overwhelming, so now the third and last requirement is that the Prosecutors must formulate their charges within 90 days after the registration of the crime. Berlusconi name was entered into the register on 21 December, so the Prosecutors have until 21 March to lodge their application for an expedited trial with the Preliminary Investigations Magistrate. One month has already passed, so the Prosecutors still have two months to lodge their application, at which point the Preliminary Investigations Magistrate may grant the request if he feels that the grounds are sufficient and thus remand Berlusconi for immediate trial.
Within five days after submission of the request, the judge must either issue a decree providing for immediate trial and order that the documentation be sent to the Prosecution, or decide that there are insufficient grounds for an immediate trial and order that the normal prosecution process be used, including preliminary hearings and the usual remand for trial or absolution. The Decree issued must also specify that the accused can ask for an expedited trial or try to plea-bargain, which would mean that everything is done entirely in chambers, behind closed doors, without any television cameras, without any journalists and without any witnesses, so what happens is that the trial will be based entirely on the available documentation, there is not much discussion at all and plea-bargains can be struck, however, I doubt very much whether Berlusconi would ever agree to a plea-bargain, that’s the last thing on his mind!
Once an expedited trial has been arranged, the proceeding take place in Court according to the same rules as a normal trial, except that everything is done more quickly, skipping the preliminary hearings and the submission of evidence. At this point, however, they are claiming that the Milan Court doesn’t have jurisdiction because Arcore falls under Monza. Besides the fact that the Monza Court’s jurisdiction does not extend to underage prostitution cases, for which the District Prosecutions have jurisdiction, in this case the Milan Prosecution, the events that took place at the Police Station fall squarely under the jurisdiction of the Milan Court, so their only hope is to get the case handed over to the Ministerial Court, but there is no way that this case can be handed over to the Ministerial Court, but why? Well, because neither Berlusconi nor Ghedini can get the case moved to the Ministerial Court, only the Prosecution can do that and they’ve already made it clear that this was not a Ministerial crime in their opinion.. Furthermore, I forgot to mention that constitutional Law No. 1/1991 stipulates that for a crime to be classified as a Ministerial crime, it must have been committed in the significant interests of the State, in other words, in order to further the aims of public interest, that’s what constitutional law No. 1, dated 16 January 1991, states that governs ministerial crimes. You can imagine if underage prostitution or telephone calls to a Police Station to demand someone’s release, bypassing normal procedures, could ever be covered by such a law. It has to have been done in the Public interest, and in this case it was more like Pubic interest than Public Interest!
So there is no possible reason, or for that matter any other way by which Berlusconi could get his case heard in the Ministerial Court, so what else can he do? He has already threatened to raise an issue of a conflict of interests between the judiciary and the State before the Constitutional Court, citing the Milan judges that are refusing to allow the case to be heard in the Ministerial Court, some may say: but if Berlusconi or his attorneys use their parliamentary majority to force the issue and drag the Milan judges before the Constitutional Committee for refusing to allow the case to be heard by the Ministerial Court, then what will come of this case? Well, there would be no valid grounds for the Constitutional Committee to rule on such a patently bullshit claim anyway, but given the slow pace at which the Constitutional Committee operates, irrespective of whether they find for Chamber of Deputies or for the Milan judges, what would happen in the meantime as regards the expedited trial? Does it continue or is it suspended? Because if Berlusconi somehow manages to get his conflict of power claim to stop the trial for the next two years, then so much for expedited trials and so it’s back to square one!
Fortunately for us, however, such a claim before the Constitutional Committee would not hold up or suspend the expedited trial, which would continue in any event. It’s already happened before with conflict of poker claims against the Milan Prosecution in the Abu Omar case, yet the trial continues and it stops just short of handing down sentence in order to await the ruling of the Constitutional Court, so Berlusconi’s case will go ahead anyway, even if the conflict of powers issue is raised and only the final ruling will be withheld until the Constitutional Court has reached its decision.
I hope I have managed to clarify the issue for you, so let’s just say that this time it really looks as if Berlusconi is balls to the wall, barring any other tricks that neither we nor Berlusconi have thought about yet and he will have to defend himself, not against allegations but against facts, starting with what he really did that night at the Police Station.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
The Elite Decides
January 26, 2011
Federico Varese, a professor of criminology at Oxford University, is the author of the forthcoming "Mafias on the Move: How Organized Crime Conquers New Territories."
With Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's latest escapades, Italy's standing in the world has never been so low as it is now. Indeed, as an Italian citizen, I'm often asked: "Why have Italians tolerated this man for so long?"
Ordinary Italians might have reached the tipping point, but not the economic, social and political elite.
A vast section of the Italian public is outraged at Mr. Berlusconi's behavior. Nearly 50 percent of Italians recently polled called for him to step down. It is likely that several million will sign a petition demanding his resignation. And contrary to Mr. Berlusconi's claims, 70 percent of Italians do not support his People of Freedom Party.
Generalized attitudes, critical as they might be, have to be channeled into viable political solutions. In a "mature" democracy, the leaders of the People of Freedom would suggest Mr. Berlusconi step down for the good of the party. But in Italy, he owns his party. The opposition party should be a credible alternative; but it isn't.
You would think the news media would be running damaging in-depth investigations on the latest scandal. But Mr. Berlusconi owns private channels and controls several state-run ones as well; those who oppose him are usually vilified in the press.
Other crucial players in Italian politics are reluctant to ditch him. For the most part, Italian business leaders still prefer Mr. Berlusconi’s government over the one led by the Left. And the Vatican, which has benefited from measures implemented by his government like support for Catholic schools and tax breaks for Church-run hotels, has been extremely timid in its criticism. Most crucially, Mr. Berlusconi remains the favored partner of the anti-immigrant Northern League, which advocates for a federal system for Italy.
Ordinary Italians might have reached the tipping point, but not the economic, social and political elite. Let's hope they catch up soon.
Federico Varese, a professor of criminology at Oxford University, is the author of the forthcoming "Mafias on the Move: How Organized Crime Conquers New Territories."
With Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's latest escapades, Italy's standing in the world has never been so low as it is now. Indeed, as an Italian citizen, I'm often asked: "Why have Italians tolerated this man for so long?"
Ordinary Italians might have reached the tipping point, but not the economic, social and political elite.
A vast section of the Italian public is outraged at Mr. Berlusconi's behavior. Nearly 50 percent of Italians recently polled called for him to step down. It is likely that several million will sign a petition demanding his resignation. And contrary to Mr. Berlusconi's claims, 70 percent of Italians do not support his People of Freedom Party.
Generalized attitudes, critical as they might be, have to be channeled into viable political solutions. In a "mature" democracy, the leaders of the People of Freedom would suggest Mr. Berlusconi step down for the good of the party. But in Italy, he owns his party. The opposition party should be a credible alternative; but it isn't.
You would think the news media would be running damaging in-depth investigations on the latest scandal. But Mr. Berlusconi owns private channels and controls several state-run ones as well; those who oppose him are usually vilified in the press.
Other crucial players in Italian politics are reluctant to ditch him. For the most part, Italian business leaders still prefer Mr. Berlusconi’s government over the one led by the Left. And the Vatican, which has benefited from measures implemented by his government like support for Catholic schools and tax breaks for Church-run hotels, has been extremely timid in its criticism. Most crucially, Mr. Berlusconi remains the favored partner of the anti-immigrant Northern League, which advocates for a federal system for Italy.
Ordinary Italians might have reached the tipping point, but not the economic, social and political elite. Let's hope they catch up soon.
Friday, January 21, 2011
From Police Headquarters to Sex with RubyThe 10 Lies of Berlusconi
by GIUSEPPE D'AVANZO
Ruby
The lies in Silvio Berlusconi's TV statement are ten in number. Below we demonstrate how the words of the Premier are falsifying variations. They form a fictitious representation for public opinion that appears largely bogus, including in light of what already has emerged from the documents in connection with the Milan investigation. The lies in the declarations of the Premier must deny how and why he managed to have weaselled out of Police Headquarters, removing from State custody, a minor accused of theft. A female minor with whom the head of government entertained, for at least three months, very intense relations: between the two there are 67 phone contacts in 77 days.
Unable to tell the truth about this relationship, the Premier is forced to lie again: he speaks of judicial persecution; he invents a violation of his privacy; he accuses the police of having mistreated his female friends: it is a self-defence that brooks no verification. "I don't have to feel ashamed," says Berlusconi. His ten lies ought to convince him not only to feel ashamed but also to assume the responsibility to make matters clear before the Bench and before the country.
Here, then, are the ten lies that, if necessary, we shall expand on over time.
1. "I HAVEN'T THREATENED ANYONE"
The Premier says: "I'll read to you the answers of the functionary at the Public Prosecutor's Office where he describes my phone call: "The security officer said to me: 'Dr, I'm putting you through to the Premier because there's a problem. Immediately afterwards the Premier told me that there was a girl of North African origin who had been reported to him as Mubarak's niece and that a member of the Regional Council, Mrs Minetti, would have taken responsibility for this girl. The phone call ended on that note.' But does it seem to you that this can be considered a threatening phone call?"
Berlusconi knows he is lying because there was more than a single phone call with the Private Secretary. As stated in the invitation to appear before judicial authorities, the functionary received repeated "further calls from the Premier" (the Public Prosecutor's Office has not divulged all Berlusconi's telephone contacts or yet made public the exact number.) They must have been urgent and impending enough as to suggest to the Private Secretary to make 24 calls to the functionary on duty, to the direct superior of the same, and to the Chief of Police. The first call comes in at 00:02.21, with the last recorded at 6:47.14. It matters not a whit whether or not the Private Secretary perceived "a threat" in the words of the Premier. It is indisputable that the functionary busies about. The upshot is the placing of Ruby, in actual fact, in the custody of a prostitute, Michele Coincecao, which eventuality the competent Children's Court, in the person of Anna Maria Fiorillo, had ruled out. This is the result of the pressure exerted by Berlusconi: the police disobey the magistrate's orders.
2. "I DIDN'T HAVE SEX WITH RUBY"
The Premier says: "I'm accused of having had sexual relations with a girl under 18 years old, Ruby. This girl has declared to the lawyers and a thousand times to all the Italian and foreign newspapers that she never ever had sexual relations with me."
It is helpful to remember how Ruby was "approached" by lawyers, by what lawyers and on what occasion. Going back to 6 October 2010, Ruby has to meet with her lawyer, not the one she has today (Massimo Di Noja), who would be appointed only on 29th October, but Luca Giuliante, also Lele Mora's counsel for the defence. Ruby reached the law office accompanied by a friend, Luca Risso. Risso, via SMS, reports what happens to a female friend of his. Five messages are useful. 1. "I'm in the middle of an unbelievable interrogation.... I'll tell you about it later, but it's crazy!" 2. "It keeps getting worse, when I tell you about it later (if I'll be able to..."). 3. The friend at the other end texts back: "Why are they questioning Ruby?" 4. Risso writes: "There's Lele [Mora], the lawyer, Ruby, an emissary of His [sic]. A woman making a written record. I'm here because they think I know everything." 5. "I'm still here. Now I've gone outside to stretch my legs. She's up there, they've stopped a moment because we're at the hard scenes with the Pr... with the person."
From this information one infers a couple of scenes. Ruby was the protagonist of "hard scenes" with the Premier.Lele Mora, Berlusconi's emissary, and attorney Giuliante "interrogate" her to learn what she has told the public prosecutors. It is a real debriefing that can enable them to know the accusations, to anticipate the moves of the public prosecutors and to rebut the girl's recollections with the sworn statement that Berlusconi waves today. Uselessly, because it appears to be more the fruit of either moral violence or corruption, if one takes Ruby at her word when she tells her father: "I'm with the lawyer, Silvio has told him: tell her that I'll pay her the price she wants. The important thing is that she keeps her mouth shut." It is 26 October 2010.
3. "EVEN RUBY FREES ME FROM BLAME"
The Premier says: "I'm reading you what Ruby herself states in a declaration that is signed and authenticated by her lawyers: 'I have never had any type of sexual relation with Mr Silvio Berlusconi. No one, neither Mr Berlusconi nor other persons, has ever proposed to me the possibility of obtaining money or other benefits in exchange for a willingness to have relations of a sexual nature with Mr Silvio Berlusconi. I can add that, instead, I received from him, as a form of help, in view of my particular situation of difficulty, a sum of money. When I met Mr Berlusconi, I illustrated to him my personal and family state in the following terms: I told him I was 24 years old, that I was an Egyptian national (not Moroccan), that I came from a family of high social status, in particular that I was the daughter of a well-known Egyptian singer. I also told him about my being in trouble owning to having been disowned by my original family after I had converted to Catholicism.' This is why I would like to go to trial immediately, with this irrefutable evidence, but with judges who are super partes.
Rather than irrefutable, these sources of evidence appear insincere. We have seen the kind of climate and before what actors Ruby's letter absolving Berlusconi comes into existence. The tale could have been better contrived. Even setting aside those "hard scenes" there are at least some important factors that make it fall apart and tell us the extent of Berlusconi's failure to tell the truth. The Premier knew Ruby was a minor and never believed she was from "a family of high social status" because it was Emilio Fede who scrutinised her at a beauty contest in Sicily in 2009. The journalist knows that she is a "misfit." There is a video that shows her when, on that occasion, he says: "There's a 13-year-old girl, Egyptian if I'm not mistaken; I was moved, I offered solidarity [because] the girl doesn't have her parents anymore."
Out of "solidarity" Fede steers the teenager to Lele Mora, who "weans" her and in that same year assigns her to Berlusconi's evenings. Some witnesses refer that in 2009 Ruby frequented Villa San Martino on two occasions. She confirms it: "I have frequented Berlusconi since I was 16 years old." The meetings with the Sovereign would not be occasional. The Dragon takes a fancy to her. From 14th February to 2nd May 2010 the telephone contacts between Ruby and the Premier number 67. Nearly a phone call every day.
4. "IT'S THE 28TH PERSECUTION"
The Premier says: "I've finally had a chance to read the 389 pages of the latest real judicial persecution, the 28th in 17 years."
The number of Berlusconi's trials is a merciful mystery that changes according to the circumstances. The Cavaliere says: "[I'm] absolutely the most prosecuted by the magistrature in all ages, in the whole history of mankind throughout the world. [I've been] subjected to 106 trials, all ending with acquittals and two invalidated by prescription" (10 October 2009). On the same day, Marina Berlusconi scales down the paternal hyperbole: "Between trials and investigations my father has been involved 26 times. But he hasn't been found guilty once, I repeat, once. And if, as they say, three instances of circumstantial evidence suffice to constitute proof, doesn't it seem to you that 26 accusations that led nowhere are incontrovertible proof of a persecution?" (Corriere, 10 October 2009). A few days later, Paolo Bonaiuti, the Premier's spokesman, further pumps up the computation: "The trials against Berlusconi number 109" ("Porta a porta" TV show, 15 October 2009). Even host Bruno Vespa rebuts, endorsing Marina's count: "Let's not exaggerate, the trials number 26."
Twenty-eight, 26, 106 or 109, and how many acquittals? Actually, the trials the Cavaliere has faced as defendant number 16. Four are still underway: bribery in connection with judicial acts in the Mills affaire; tax fraud concerning Mediaset TV rights (being heard in Milan); embezzlement in the Mediatrade affaire; and this latest for abuse of office and abetting juvenile prostitution.
In the trials already ended, only three cases saw sentences of acquittal. On one occasion with full acquittal, for the "Sme-Ariosto/1" affaire (the bribery of Rome judges). Twice with reservation: the "Medusa" slush funds and the bribes to the Revenue Guard Corps, where the Cavaliere was found guilty of bribery in the first instance, declared guilty with the sentence invalidated by prescription on appeal thanks to generic extenuating circumstances, and acquitted on appeal to the Court of Cassation due to "lack of evidence." With the legal provisions on false book entries reformed and decriminalised by the Berlusconi government, the defendant Berlusconi was acquitted in two trials (All Iberian/2 and Sme-Ariosto/2) because "the fact is not an offence provided for by law."
Two amnesties extinguish the offence and cancel his conviction for perjury (he had fudged the dates of his enrolment in the P2) and for false booking (the lands of Macherio). He was saved five times by "generic extenuating circumstances" that (mind you) can be granted to those found guilty as charged. Moreover, in three cases the "generic extenuating circumstances" allowed him to benefit from the halved invalidation by prescription time that he devised for himself as head of government: "All Iberian/1" (unlawful financing of Craxi); the "Lentini case"; "Fininvest balance sheets1988-1992"; "slush fund in consolidated Fininvest" (1,500 milliard euros); Mondadori (Berlusconi's attorney, Cesare Previti, "buys" Judge Metta, with both found guilty). Rather than judicial persecution, we are before an adventure marked by a high degree of illegality.
5. "THEY'VE BEEN SPYING ON ME SINCE JANUARY 2010"
The Premier says: "Just think, my Arcore home has been subjected to a continuous monitoring that has been going on since January of 2010 to check on all the persons who entered and left and how long they stayed. They have used sophisticated techniques as though they had to do a roundup against the Mafia or against the Camorra". "You must know that the Public Prosecutor's Office of Milan listed me as a suspect only on 21st December last, what a coincidence, just seven days after the vote of confidence in Parliament, and therefore all the previous investigations were formally directed against others but essentially they were keeping precisely my home and my person under control."
God only knows what the vote of confidence has to do with it. What would he have said had the vote gone against him? He would have said that, the government having fallen, the magistrature starts its revenge. Berlusconi must let it be believed in order to politicise a melancholy story of juvenile prostitutes and abuses of power that have nothing to do with politics.
It is false to maintain that his Arcore home has been kept under surveillance for a year. After Ruby's declarations (3 August 2010), the investigations proceed very cautiously. Initially they are directed toward Lele Mora, Emilio Fede and Nicole Minetti. Only in the autumn do possible direct responsibilities of the Premier emerge. Prior to listing Berlusconi in the register of suspects, the public prosecutors, as always, conduct a thorough preliminary examination as to whether the charges have some basis in fact. They request the printouts of Ruby's phone calls beginning from January 2010. Does she really know the head of government? The verification process thus is done after the fact and not in real time as the head of government, lying, maliciously alleges.
6. "THEY HAVE DONE VIOLENCE TO MY HOME"
The Premier says: "In my home I have always performed government and parliamentary duties, even having so informed the Chamber of Deputies since 2004, and the violation that has been committed is particularly serious because it goes against the most elementary constitutional principles."
From no record of the investigation can it be inferred that the residence of the Premier has been "violated." A procurer is being investigated. An eye is kept on the same. The man moves with prostitutes in his retinue. He is followed. It is discovered that the procession of cars, often escorted by a State car, enters the gate of Villa San Martino. No offence is done to the domicile. Rather, we must ask ourselves whether Berlusconi does it offence. There are some good reasons for maintaining so. He pretends that his private dwelling be considered a State residence. Fine. This is why, including owing to an elementary constitutional principle (Art. 54 of the Constitution of the Republic of Italy: "Citizens who have been entrusted with public functions have the duty to discharge them with discipline and honour"), Berlusconi ought not to fill his house with prostitutes (in meeting the obligation of "honour" that should go hand in hand with his public responsibility). He ought to protect himself by exercising "discipline" and not neglect his personal safety, as happens when opening the door to any Italian or foreign girl willing to spend the night with him. His disorderly life has made him vulnerable and open to blackmail. Berlusconi was continuously extorted by his female guests, as one learns from the investigations. It is only natural to ask: These may be minor instances of blackmail, but on how many and what occasions, perhaps at the international level, has Berlusconi also made possible major instances of blackmail? And who knows whether they may still be "current"?
7. "MILAN LACKS JURISDICTION"
The Premier says: "As the law and the Constitution prescribe, within 15 days from the beginning of the investigations the Public Prosecutor's Office should have turned over all the records to the Court of Ministers, the only one competent for all these matters. Furthermore, it is extremely serious that the Public Prosecutor's Office wants to continue to investigate despite not being legitimised to do so. Among other things, the Public Prosecutor's Office of Milan even lacked jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, the offence of abuse of office is being charged against me as though it were committed in Milan. This is obviously groundless since the functionary at Police Headquarters who received my telephone call at the time was, as shown by the investigations themselves, in Sesto San Giovanni. Therefore, the jurisdiction belonged and belongs to the Court of Monza."
It is bizarre that Berlusconi takes on the role of shyster and disputes the jurisdiction of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Milan in a telecast video and not in the courtroom. In the latter it would be more difficult for him to win his point, the pertinent jurisprudence being uniform. Abuse of office is an abuse. It has to do with "power" if the person who engages in it plays on "functional powers for a purpose other than that with which he has been vested" (Court of Cassation). To make things clear, it would have been an abuse of office had the Minister of the Interior called the Police Headquarters of Milan to "recommend" Ruby's release. Such abuse may also involve "capacity." In this case, it involves "behaviour that, regardless of the competencies of the subject (the abuser), manifests itself as an instrumentalisation of the position of pre-eminence held."
This is the case of Berlusconi. Abuse of power and abuse of capacity presuppose two different competencies. The abuse of power by a minister imposes the competence of the Court of Ministers. The abuse of capacity requires territorial competence: Where was the offence committed? The head of government knows that this is the decisive question and tries to stack the deck. He says: Monza has jurisdiction because here is where the Private Secretary of the Police Headquarters that received my phone call lives. Error. Abuse of office is an offence involving an "event" and not "behaviour" and therefore the jurisdiction is rooted where "the gain" materialises. It is undoubted that the gain (Ruby entrusted to Minetti and removed from State protection) becomes concrete in Milan.
8. "ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY POLICE OFFICERS AGAINST 10 GIRLS: MY FRIENDS HAVE BEEN MISTREATED"
The Premier says: "The same public prosecutors who ordered, with a deployment of forces numbering at least 150 men, an impressive search operation against girls guilty only of having been my guests at some dinners.... These searches with regard to persons who weren't even under investigation but just witnesses were performed with the utmost contempt for the dignity of their person and of their privacy. They were mistreated."
A fib. Ten members of the Criminal Police attached to the Public Prosecutor's Office have collaborated in the investigation; they are available not only for this investigation but also for the work of all 90 of Milan's public prosecutors. Last Friday the Flying Squad of Milan dispatched 30 police officers (including many women) to search the flats of ten of the Premier's female friends, habitués of Arcore. Mistreatment? Berlusconi is belied even by Giuseppe Spinelli, the accountant of Arcore, official paymaster of the Premier's female friends: "At 7:30 we found five Criminalpol police officers in the house. They weren't at all rude...."
9. "I'VE NEVER PAID A WOMAN"
The Premier says: "It's absurd just to think that I paid to have relations with a woman. It's something that never happened to me even once in my life. It's something that I would consider degrading for my dignity."
Patrizia D'Addario was paid previously, even if by Giampaolo Tarantini, to keep the head of government company in Putin's big bed at Palazzo Grazioli. The Milan investigation instead tells us how none of the girls invited to Arcore left the villa without an envelope containing a 500-euro banknote prepared by the house accountant. Even those, such as M. T., who were uninterested in money, found themselves being offered an envelope containing 500 euros. A poker chip. Nothing like the "7,000 euros" received by Ruby. And by Iris. And by Imma. And by Barbara.... It is sooner said what girl did not get paid than to list the names of those who lingered in the "bunga bunga" room or in the arms of the Dragon in exchange for payment. None of the girls who after dinner descended to the room below ground level of Villa San Martino went away empty-handed. It is useless to say how degraded the Premier's dignity appears.
10. "I DON'T HAVE TO FEEL ASHAMED"
The Premier says: "There was no abuse of power, there was no abetting of prostitution, much less involving minors. There was nothing for me to be ashamed of. There is just an extremely serious attack by some public prosecutors who have trampled on the laws for political purposes with great amplification by the media."
Berlusconi must not feel ashamed only over the dishonour that has upset the country and over the discredit that today defiles the premiership. On 28 May 2009, one month from the beginning of the Noemi affaire, he said: "I swear on the head of my children never having had 'spicy' relations with minors. If I were lying, I would resign immediately." Berlusconi must feel shame for the relations entertained from 2009 to 2010 with two minors (Noemi and Ruby). He must feel shame for having lied to the country. He must feel shame for not yet having resigned.
(January 21st 2011)
Ruby
The lies in Silvio Berlusconi's TV statement are ten in number. Below we demonstrate how the words of the Premier are falsifying variations. They form a fictitious representation for public opinion that appears largely bogus, including in light of what already has emerged from the documents in connection with the Milan investigation. The lies in the declarations of the Premier must deny how and why he managed to have weaselled out of Police Headquarters, removing from State custody, a minor accused of theft. A female minor with whom the head of government entertained, for at least three months, very intense relations: between the two there are 67 phone contacts in 77 days.
Unable to tell the truth about this relationship, the Premier is forced to lie again: he speaks of judicial persecution; he invents a violation of his privacy; he accuses the police of having mistreated his female friends: it is a self-defence that brooks no verification. "I don't have to feel ashamed," says Berlusconi. His ten lies ought to convince him not only to feel ashamed but also to assume the responsibility to make matters clear before the Bench and before the country.
Here, then, are the ten lies that, if necessary, we shall expand on over time.
1. "I HAVEN'T THREATENED ANYONE"
The Premier says: "I'll read to you the answers of the functionary at the Public Prosecutor's Office where he describes my phone call: "The security officer said to me: 'Dr, I'm putting you through to the Premier because there's a problem. Immediately afterwards the Premier told me that there was a girl of North African origin who had been reported to him as Mubarak's niece and that a member of the Regional Council, Mrs Minetti, would have taken responsibility for this girl. The phone call ended on that note.' But does it seem to you that this can be considered a threatening phone call?"
Berlusconi knows he is lying because there was more than a single phone call with the Private Secretary. As stated in the invitation to appear before judicial authorities, the functionary received repeated "further calls from the Premier" (the Public Prosecutor's Office has not divulged all Berlusconi's telephone contacts or yet made public the exact number.) They must have been urgent and impending enough as to suggest to the Private Secretary to make 24 calls to the functionary on duty, to the direct superior of the same, and to the Chief of Police. The first call comes in at 00:02.21, with the last recorded at 6:47.14. It matters not a whit whether or not the Private Secretary perceived "a threat" in the words of the Premier. It is indisputable that the functionary busies about. The upshot is the placing of Ruby, in actual fact, in the custody of a prostitute, Michele Coincecao, which eventuality the competent Children's Court, in the person of Anna Maria Fiorillo, had ruled out. This is the result of the pressure exerted by Berlusconi: the police disobey the magistrate's orders.
2. "I DIDN'T HAVE SEX WITH RUBY"
The Premier says: "I'm accused of having had sexual relations with a girl under 18 years old, Ruby. This girl has declared to the lawyers and a thousand times to all the Italian and foreign newspapers that she never ever had sexual relations with me."
It is helpful to remember how Ruby was "approached" by lawyers, by what lawyers and on what occasion. Going back to 6 October 2010, Ruby has to meet with her lawyer, not the one she has today (Massimo Di Noja), who would be appointed only on 29th October, but Luca Giuliante, also Lele Mora's counsel for the defence. Ruby reached the law office accompanied by a friend, Luca Risso. Risso, via SMS, reports what happens to a female friend of his. Five messages are useful. 1. "I'm in the middle of an unbelievable interrogation.... I'll tell you about it later, but it's crazy!" 2. "It keeps getting worse, when I tell you about it later (if I'll be able to..."). 3. The friend at the other end texts back: "Why are they questioning Ruby?" 4. Risso writes: "There's Lele [Mora], the lawyer, Ruby, an emissary of His [sic]. A woman making a written record. I'm here because they think I know everything." 5. "I'm still here. Now I've gone outside to stretch my legs. She's up there, they've stopped a moment because we're at the hard scenes with the Pr... with the person."
From this information one infers a couple of scenes. Ruby was the protagonist of "hard scenes" with the Premier.Lele Mora, Berlusconi's emissary, and attorney Giuliante "interrogate" her to learn what she has told the public prosecutors. It is a real debriefing that can enable them to know the accusations, to anticipate the moves of the public prosecutors and to rebut the girl's recollections with the sworn statement that Berlusconi waves today. Uselessly, because it appears to be more the fruit of either moral violence or corruption, if one takes Ruby at her word when she tells her father: "I'm with the lawyer, Silvio has told him: tell her that I'll pay her the price she wants. The important thing is that she keeps her mouth shut." It is 26 October 2010.
3. "EVEN RUBY FREES ME FROM BLAME"
The Premier says: "I'm reading you what Ruby herself states in a declaration that is signed and authenticated by her lawyers: 'I have never had any type of sexual relation with Mr Silvio Berlusconi. No one, neither Mr Berlusconi nor other persons, has ever proposed to me the possibility of obtaining money or other benefits in exchange for a willingness to have relations of a sexual nature with Mr Silvio Berlusconi. I can add that, instead, I received from him, as a form of help, in view of my particular situation of difficulty, a sum of money. When I met Mr Berlusconi, I illustrated to him my personal and family state in the following terms: I told him I was 24 years old, that I was an Egyptian national (not Moroccan), that I came from a family of high social status, in particular that I was the daughter of a well-known Egyptian singer. I also told him about my being in trouble owning to having been disowned by my original family after I had converted to Catholicism.' This is why I would like to go to trial immediately, with this irrefutable evidence, but with judges who are super partes.
Rather than irrefutable, these sources of evidence appear insincere. We have seen the kind of climate and before what actors Ruby's letter absolving Berlusconi comes into existence. The tale could have been better contrived. Even setting aside those "hard scenes" there are at least some important factors that make it fall apart and tell us the extent of Berlusconi's failure to tell the truth. The Premier knew Ruby was a minor and never believed she was from "a family of high social status" because it was Emilio Fede who scrutinised her at a beauty contest in Sicily in 2009. The journalist knows that she is a "misfit." There is a video that shows her when, on that occasion, he says: "There's a 13-year-old girl, Egyptian if I'm not mistaken; I was moved, I offered solidarity [because] the girl doesn't have her parents anymore."
Out of "solidarity" Fede steers the teenager to Lele Mora, who "weans" her and in that same year assigns her to Berlusconi's evenings. Some witnesses refer that in 2009 Ruby frequented Villa San Martino on two occasions. She confirms it: "I have frequented Berlusconi since I was 16 years old." The meetings with the Sovereign would not be occasional. The Dragon takes a fancy to her. From 14th February to 2nd May 2010 the telephone contacts between Ruby and the Premier number 67. Nearly a phone call every day.
4. "IT'S THE 28TH PERSECUTION"
The Premier says: "I've finally had a chance to read the 389 pages of the latest real judicial persecution, the 28th in 17 years."
The number of Berlusconi's trials is a merciful mystery that changes according to the circumstances. The Cavaliere says: "[I'm] absolutely the most prosecuted by the magistrature in all ages, in the whole history of mankind throughout the world. [I've been] subjected to 106 trials, all ending with acquittals and two invalidated by prescription" (10 October 2009). On the same day, Marina Berlusconi scales down the paternal hyperbole: "Between trials and investigations my father has been involved 26 times. But he hasn't been found guilty once, I repeat, once. And if, as they say, three instances of circumstantial evidence suffice to constitute proof, doesn't it seem to you that 26 accusations that led nowhere are incontrovertible proof of a persecution?" (Corriere, 10 October 2009). A few days later, Paolo Bonaiuti, the Premier's spokesman, further pumps up the computation: "The trials against Berlusconi number 109" ("Porta a porta" TV show, 15 October 2009). Even host Bruno Vespa rebuts, endorsing Marina's count: "Let's not exaggerate, the trials number 26."
Twenty-eight, 26, 106 or 109, and how many acquittals? Actually, the trials the Cavaliere has faced as defendant number 16. Four are still underway: bribery in connection with judicial acts in the Mills affaire; tax fraud concerning Mediaset TV rights (being heard in Milan); embezzlement in the Mediatrade affaire; and this latest for abuse of office and abetting juvenile prostitution.
In the trials already ended, only three cases saw sentences of acquittal. On one occasion with full acquittal, for the "Sme-Ariosto/1" affaire (the bribery of Rome judges). Twice with reservation: the "Medusa" slush funds and the bribes to the Revenue Guard Corps, where the Cavaliere was found guilty of bribery in the first instance, declared guilty with the sentence invalidated by prescription on appeal thanks to generic extenuating circumstances, and acquitted on appeal to the Court of Cassation due to "lack of evidence." With the legal provisions on false book entries reformed and decriminalised by the Berlusconi government, the defendant Berlusconi was acquitted in two trials (All Iberian/2 and Sme-Ariosto/2) because "the fact is not an offence provided for by law."
Two amnesties extinguish the offence and cancel his conviction for perjury (he had fudged the dates of his enrolment in the P2) and for false booking (the lands of Macherio). He was saved five times by "generic extenuating circumstances" that (mind you) can be granted to those found guilty as charged. Moreover, in three cases the "generic extenuating circumstances" allowed him to benefit from the halved invalidation by prescription time that he devised for himself as head of government: "All Iberian/1" (unlawful financing of Craxi); the "Lentini case"; "Fininvest balance sheets1988-1992"; "slush fund in consolidated Fininvest" (1,500 milliard euros); Mondadori (Berlusconi's attorney, Cesare Previti, "buys" Judge Metta, with both found guilty). Rather than judicial persecution, we are before an adventure marked by a high degree of illegality.
5. "THEY'VE BEEN SPYING ON ME SINCE JANUARY 2010"
The Premier says: "Just think, my Arcore home has been subjected to a continuous monitoring that has been going on since January of 2010 to check on all the persons who entered and left and how long they stayed. They have used sophisticated techniques as though they had to do a roundup against the Mafia or against the Camorra". "You must know that the Public Prosecutor's Office of Milan listed me as a suspect only on 21st December last, what a coincidence, just seven days after the vote of confidence in Parliament, and therefore all the previous investigations were formally directed against others but essentially they were keeping precisely my home and my person under control."
God only knows what the vote of confidence has to do with it. What would he have said had the vote gone against him? He would have said that, the government having fallen, the magistrature starts its revenge. Berlusconi must let it be believed in order to politicise a melancholy story of juvenile prostitutes and abuses of power that have nothing to do with politics.
It is false to maintain that his Arcore home has been kept under surveillance for a year. After Ruby's declarations (3 August 2010), the investigations proceed very cautiously. Initially they are directed toward Lele Mora, Emilio Fede and Nicole Minetti. Only in the autumn do possible direct responsibilities of the Premier emerge. Prior to listing Berlusconi in the register of suspects, the public prosecutors, as always, conduct a thorough preliminary examination as to whether the charges have some basis in fact. They request the printouts of Ruby's phone calls beginning from January 2010. Does she really know the head of government? The verification process thus is done after the fact and not in real time as the head of government, lying, maliciously alleges.
6. "THEY HAVE DONE VIOLENCE TO MY HOME"
The Premier says: "In my home I have always performed government and parliamentary duties, even having so informed the Chamber of Deputies since 2004, and the violation that has been committed is particularly serious because it goes against the most elementary constitutional principles."
From no record of the investigation can it be inferred that the residence of the Premier has been "violated." A procurer is being investigated. An eye is kept on the same. The man moves with prostitutes in his retinue. He is followed. It is discovered that the procession of cars, often escorted by a State car, enters the gate of Villa San Martino. No offence is done to the domicile. Rather, we must ask ourselves whether Berlusconi does it offence. There are some good reasons for maintaining so. He pretends that his private dwelling be considered a State residence. Fine. This is why, including owing to an elementary constitutional principle (Art. 54 of the Constitution of the Republic of Italy: "Citizens who have been entrusted with public functions have the duty to discharge them with discipline and honour"), Berlusconi ought not to fill his house with prostitutes (in meeting the obligation of "honour" that should go hand in hand with his public responsibility). He ought to protect himself by exercising "discipline" and not neglect his personal safety, as happens when opening the door to any Italian or foreign girl willing to spend the night with him. His disorderly life has made him vulnerable and open to blackmail. Berlusconi was continuously extorted by his female guests, as one learns from the investigations. It is only natural to ask: These may be minor instances of blackmail, but on how many and what occasions, perhaps at the international level, has Berlusconi also made possible major instances of blackmail? And who knows whether they may still be "current"?
7. "MILAN LACKS JURISDICTION"
The Premier says: "As the law and the Constitution prescribe, within 15 days from the beginning of the investigations the Public Prosecutor's Office should have turned over all the records to the Court of Ministers, the only one competent for all these matters. Furthermore, it is extremely serious that the Public Prosecutor's Office wants to continue to investigate despite not being legitimised to do so. Among other things, the Public Prosecutor's Office of Milan even lacked jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, the offence of abuse of office is being charged against me as though it were committed in Milan. This is obviously groundless since the functionary at Police Headquarters who received my telephone call at the time was, as shown by the investigations themselves, in Sesto San Giovanni. Therefore, the jurisdiction belonged and belongs to the Court of Monza."
It is bizarre that Berlusconi takes on the role of shyster and disputes the jurisdiction of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Milan in a telecast video and not in the courtroom. In the latter it would be more difficult for him to win his point, the pertinent jurisprudence being uniform. Abuse of office is an abuse. It has to do with "power" if the person who engages in it plays on "functional powers for a purpose other than that with which he has been vested" (Court of Cassation). To make things clear, it would have been an abuse of office had the Minister of the Interior called the Police Headquarters of Milan to "recommend" Ruby's release. Such abuse may also involve "capacity." In this case, it involves "behaviour that, regardless of the competencies of the subject (the abuser), manifests itself as an instrumentalisation of the position of pre-eminence held."
This is the case of Berlusconi. Abuse of power and abuse of capacity presuppose two different competencies. The abuse of power by a minister imposes the competence of the Court of Ministers. The abuse of capacity requires territorial competence: Where was the offence committed? The head of government knows that this is the decisive question and tries to stack the deck. He says: Monza has jurisdiction because here is where the Private Secretary of the Police Headquarters that received my phone call lives. Error. Abuse of office is an offence involving an "event" and not "behaviour" and therefore the jurisdiction is rooted where "the gain" materialises. It is undoubted that the gain (Ruby entrusted to Minetti and removed from State protection) becomes concrete in Milan.
8. "ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY POLICE OFFICERS AGAINST 10 GIRLS: MY FRIENDS HAVE BEEN MISTREATED"
The Premier says: "The same public prosecutors who ordered, with a deployment of forces numbering at least 150 men, an impressive search operation against girls guilty only of having been my guests at some dinners.... These searches with regard to persons who weren't even under investigation but just witnesses were performed with the utmost contempt for the dignity of their person and of their privacy. They were mistreated."
A fib. Ten members of the Criminal Police attached to the Public Prosecutor's Office have collaborated in the investigation; they are available not only for this investigation but also for the work of all 90 of Milan's public prosecutors. Last Friday the Flying Squad of Milan dispatched 30 police officers (including many women) to search the flats of ten of the Premier's female friends, habitués of Arcore. Mistreatment? Berlusconi is belied even by Giuseppe Spinelli, the accountant of Arcore, official paymaster of the Premier's female friends: "At 7:30 we found five Criminalpol police officers in the house. They weren't at all rude...."
9. "I'VE NEVER PAID A WOMAN"
The Premier says: "It's absurd just to think that I paid to have relations with a woman. It's something that never happened to me even once in my life. It's something that I would consider degrading for my dignity."
Patrizia D'Addario was paid previously, even if by Giampaolo Tarantini, to keep the head of government company in Putin's big bed at Palazzo Grazioli. The Milan investigation instead tells us how none of the girls invited to Arcore left the villa without an envelope containing a 500-euro banknote prepared by the house accountant. Even those, such as M. T., who were uninterested in money, found themselves being offered an envelope containing 500 euros. A poker chip. Nothing like the "7,000 euros" received by Ruby. And by Iris. And by Imma. And by Barbara.... It is sooner said what girl did not get paid than to list the names of those who lingered in the "bunga bunga" room or in the arms of the Dragon in exchange for payment. None of the girls who after dinner descended to the room below ground level of Villa San Martino went away empty-handed. It is useless to say how degraded the Premier's dignity appears.
10. "I DON'T HAVE TO FEEL ASHAMED"
The Premier says: "There was no abuse of power, there was no abetting of prostitution, much less involving minors. There was nothing for me to be ashamed of. There is just an extremely serious attack by some public prosecutors who have trampled on the laws for political purposes with great amplification by the media."
Berlusconi must not feel ashamed only over the dishonour that has upset the country and over the discredit that today defiles the premiership. On 28 May 2009, one month from the beginning of the Noemi affaire, he said: "I swear on the head of my children never having had 'spicy' relations with minors. If I were lying, I would resign immediately." Berlusconi must feel shame for the relations entertained from 2009 to 2010 with two minors (Noemi and Ruby). He must feel shame for having lied to the country. He must feel shame for not yet having resigned.
(January 21st 2011)
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Unemployed women whores and overpaid (Berlusconi girls)
The latest report Istat said one in two women in Italy is without a job and not even try anymore. The female unemployment rate is the second highest in Europe (48.9 percent, worst in us only Malta). Add to this another fact disastrous: more than two million girls and boys who are not working but not studying. It speaks of two million young people between 15 and 30 years for an average of 21.2 percent, the highest proportion in Europe.
For many women, young unemployed there is also a handful of girls too busy and overpaid, the squalid ones in recent days telling us committed to handle the 500-euro bills, envelopes, nurse costumes, stockings, bags, designer Brand sunglasses, glitter, jewels, necklaces, gold pendants and so forth. And we also laugh over: "Oh, a normal Christian works seven months to take what I've got myself, I know it's a bit 'much ...."
They are a minority but unfortunately the most visible. They are not "poor girls" as someone tries to describe the papers (Cazzullo Aldo, Il Corriere della Sera). Nor is it "a slice of Italy as it has become." They are simply the scum of society, so people can not feel pity, but only anger and disgust with their stories and orphans with difficult childhoods of absent fathers and uncles rapists. If they were true, you know how many girls, including the two million unemployed under the age of thirty photographed by Istat, have stories behind them just as difficult? But do not prostitute themselves and not sold. You know how many unemployed women are struggling to find money for the mortgage or do not say to get married or have a child (most unreachable dreams you'd like), but simply to make ends meet and pay the bills?
Yet a handful of whores gets rid of the real women of this country. And, especially if you look abroad, it seems that Italy is only the "great puttanaio" they're talking about wiretapping.
(caterina soffici ilfattoquotidiano.it)
For many women, young unemployed there is also a handful of girls too busy and overpaid, the squalid ones in recent days telling us committed to handle the 500-euro bills, envelopes, nurse costumes, stockings, bags, designer Brand sunglasses, glitter, jewels, necklaces, gold pendants and so forth. And we also laugh over: "Oh, a normal Christian works seven months to take what I've got myself, I know it's a bit 'much ...."
They are a minority but unfortunately the most visible. They are not "poor girls" as someone tries to describe the papers (Cazzullo Aldo, Il Corriere della Sera). Nor is it "a slice of Italy as it has become." They are simply the scum of society, so people can not feel pity, but only anger and disgust with their stories and orphans with difficult childhoods of absent fathers and uncles rapists. If they were true, you know how many girls, including the two million unemployed under the age of thirty photographed by Istat, have stories behind them just as difficult? But do not prostitute themselves and not sold. You know how many unemployed women are struggling to find money for the mortgage or do not say to get married or have a child (most unreachable dreams you'd like), but simply to make ends meet and pay the bills?
Yet a handful of whores gets rid of the real women of this country. And, especially if you look abroad, it seems that Italy is only the "great puttanaio" they're talking about wiretapping.
(caterina soffici ilfattoquotidiano.it)
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Wiretapped conversations from a nightclub dancer who said she had dallied with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
ROME — A tabloid tidal wave washed over Italy on Tuesday as newspapers published eye-popping as a minor, but whether it would sweep the wily prime minister out to sea was still anyone’s guess.
The wiretaps emerged days after prosecutors opened an investigation into Mr. Berlusconi on charges that he compensated Moroccan-born Karima el-Mahroug, nicknamed “Ruby Rubacuori,” or “Ruby Heart-Stealer,” for sex at his villa outside Milan when she was a minor. In wiretaps, Ms. Mahroug said she had been attending parties at Mr. Berlusconi’s villa since she was 16.
Mr. Berlusconi, 74, who denies all wrongdoing and says he did not know Ms. Mahroug was a minor, is also accused of helping to get her released from police custody when she was detained for theft last spring. Now 18, she said she had asked Mr. Berlusconi for 5 million euros, or $6.7 million, to keep quiet, according to wiretaps published Tuesday in the Italian press.
But Ms. Mahroug is apparently only a face in the crowd. Prosecutors said this week that “a significant number” of young women had prostituted themselves to the prime minister, obtaining cash or rent-free housing in exchange for sex. In Italy, where a facade of Roman Catholic morality masks a high tolerance for illicit romance, Mr. Berlusconi has weathered scandals for years.
But this time, with the prime minister facing possible criminal charges and with wiretaps presenting a picture of a sordid world of orgies and of blackmail by call girls, things are beginning to look different. Mr. Berlusconi only narrowly survived two no-confidence votes in mid-December, and could be forced to call new elections if any one of the allies in his shaky coalition pulled out.
Above all, Italians are increasingly alarmed by the divide between the country’s ills and the prime minister’s priorities.
“It’s not important what he does privately, but what he doesn’t do as a head of government,” said Simone Calvarese, 41, a bus driver in downtown Rome, who said he had voted for Mr. Berlusconi in the past but like many Italians had lost patience.
On Tuesday, the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, expressed “grave concern” over the scandal and called on Mr. Berlusconi to clarify things, while the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Avvenire, published a rare front-page editorial that decried a crude culture of “power, sex and money,” implicitly criticizing Mr. Berlusconi’s behavior, and called prostitution “morally indefensible.”
Last week, Italy’s highest court removed the prime minister’s automatic immunity from prosecution, and he is holding on to his parliamentary majority by a thread.
But it remains to be seen if the government will collapse. On Tuesday, the opposition stepped up calls for Mr. Berlusconi to resign, but he can fall only if he loses his parliamentary majority, and for now his party loyalists are sticking with him.
“With Berlusconi, the rules from any other place or government don’t apply,” said Mario Calabresi, the editor of the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa. “It’s hard to know if this will really be the last scandal that makes Berlusconi fall, because for him to fall, someone has to bring him down.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Berlusconi said he would not resign. He said he was less the target of a judicial investigation than of “subversive” media attacks.
Indeed, splashed across the press, the wiretapped conversations have gripped Italy. Culled from a range of women, lawyers and associates, the wiretaps show the intersection of politics and the kind of reality-television culture that Mr. Berlusconi has helped create in his decades as Italy’s largest private broadcaster.
In one wiretapped conversation published Tuesday in La Repubblica, Ms. Mahroug said the prime minister had offered to pay her to keep quiet about her detention for theft. “He called me, telling me, ‘Ruby, I’ll give you as much money as you want, I’ll pay you, I’ll cover you in gold, but the important thing is that you hide everything; don’t tell anyone anything.’ ”
The scandal has a cast of characters that would fill an entire soap opera season. Also under investigation are Emilio Fede, 79, one of Mr. Berlusconi’s oldest friends and the director of a news program owned by his company, Mediaset; and Lele Mora, 55, an agent for television personalities. The authorities are also investigating Nicole Minetti, 25, a former dental hygienist and now a politician for Mr. Berlusconi’s party in Lombardy, who is accused of helping manage the young women in Mr. Berlusconi’s orbit, including intervening with the local police when Ms. Mahroug was questioned about a theft last May.
Prosecutors say the three helped procure attractive young women, many of whom had appeared on the reality television shows that have been a staple on Mr. Berlusconi’s television channels for years, for parties at Mr. Berlusconi’s villas.
Related
A parliamentary committee is expected to begin discussion Wednesday on a request by prosecutors to search some of Mr. Berlusconi’s properties. Among these are offices near Milan that they say could contain documents indicating that some women were given rent-free apartments in a complex owned by Mr. Berlusconi in exchange for sex.
The wiretaps published Tuesday seriously damage the superman image that Mr. Berlusconi helped cultivate.
In a conversation published in Corriere della Sera, one young woman named by prosecutors in the prostitution inquiry complained about the prime minister’s looks, saying: “He’s more dead than alive. He’s even become ugly. He should just give up. I hope he’s more generous.”
In another transcript published in Corriere della Sera, Ms. Mahroug compared herself to Noemi Letizia, a woman whose 18th birthday party Mr. Berlusconi attended in the spring of 2009, weeks before his wife filed for divorce, who said she called him “Daddy.” “I call him Daddy, too, but she was his little darling.”
Other wiretapped conversations told of parties in which Mr. Berlusconi, Mr. Fede and Mr. Mora would spend evenings with dozens of women, who would strip down to their underwear while the men watched.
In a televised address on Sunday, a tense-looking Mr. Berlusconi, his face plastered with pancake makeup, attacked the magistrates investigating him, defended his right to privacy and denied that he had ever paid for sex.
For the first time since his wife filed for divorce, Mr. Berlusconi also said he had a steady girlfriend — prompting a wave of speculation over her identity. Italian bookmakers put the best odds on her being a member of Parliament, but a former Miss Piedmont also appeared to be a contender.
Sitting against a backdrop of family photos and a small statuette of a bucking horse, Mr. Berlusconi added that his parties were all conducted with “the most absolute elegance, decorum and calm.”
(the New York Times)
The wiretaps emerged days after prosecutors opened an investigation into Mr. Berlusconi on charges that he compensated Moroccan-born Karima el-Mahroug, nicknamed “Ruby Rubacuori,” or “Ruby Heart-Stealer,” for sex at his villa outside Milan when she was a minor. In wiretaps, Ms. Mahroug said she had been attending parties at Mr. Berlusconi’s villa since she was 16.
Mr. Berlusconi, 74, who denies all wrongdoing and says he did not know Ms. Mahroug was a minor, is also accused of helping to get her released from police custody when she was detained for theft last spring. Now 18, she said she had asked Mr. Berlusconi for 5 million euros, or $6.7 million, to keep quiet, according to wiretaps published Tuesday in the Italian press.
But Ms. Mahroug is apparently only a face in the crowd. Prosecutors said this week that “a significant number” of young women had prostituted themselves to the prime minister, obtaining cash or rent-free housing in exchange for sex. In Italy, where a facade of Roman Catholic morality masks a high tolerance for illicit romance, Mr. Berlusconi has weathered scandals for years.
But this time, with the prime minister facing possible criminal charges and with wiretaps presenting a picture of a sordid world of orgies and of blackmail by call girls, things are beginning to look different. Mr. Berlusconi only narrowly survived two no-confidence votes in mid-December, and could be forced to call new elections if any one of the allies in his shaky coalition pulled out.
Above all, Italians are increasingly alarmed by the divide between the country’s ills and the prime minister’s priorities.
“It’s not important what he does privately, but what he doesn’t do as a head of government,” said Simone Calvarese, 41, a bus driver in downtown Rome, who said he had voted for Mr. Berlusconi in the past but like many Italians had lost patience.
On Tuesday, the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, expressed “grave concern” over the scandal and called on Mr. Berlusconi to clarify things, while the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Avvenire, published a rare front-page editorial that decried a crude culture of “power, sex and money,” implicitly criticizing Mr. Berlusconi’s behavior, and called prostitution “morally indefensible.”
Last week, Italy’s highest court removed the prime minister’s automatic immunity from prosecution, and he is holding on to his parliamentary majority by a thread.
But it remains to be seen if the government will collapse. On Tuesday, the opposition stepped up calls for Mr. Berlusconi to resign, but he can fall only if he loses his parliamentary majority, and for now his party loyalists are sticking with him.
“With Berlusconi, the rules from any other place or government don’t apply,” said Mario Calabresi, the editor of the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa. “It’s hard to know if this will really be the last scandal that makes Berlusconi fall, because for him to fall, someone has to bring him down.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Berlusconi said he would not resign. He said he was less the target of a judicial investigation than of “subversive” media attacks.
Indeed, splashed across the press, the wiretapped conversations have gripped Italy. Culled from a range of women, lawyers and associates, the wiretaps show the intersection of politics and the kind of reality-television culture that Mr. Berlusconi has helped create in his decades as Italy’s largest private broadcaster.
In one wiretapped conversation published Tuesday in La Repubblica, Ms. Mahroug said the prime minister had offered to pay her to keep quiet about her detention for theft. “He called me, telling me, ‘Ruby, I’ll give you as much money as you want, I’ll pay you, I’ll cover you in gold, but the important thing is that you hide everything; don’t tell anyone anything.’ ”
The scandal has a cast of characters that would fill an entire soap opera season. Also under investigation are Emilio Fede, 79, one of Mr. Berlusconi’s oldest friends and the director of a news program owned by his company, Mediaset; and Lele Mora, 55, an agent for television personalities. The authorities are also investigating Nicole Minetti, 25, a former dental hygienist and now a politician for Mr. Berlusconi’s party in Lombardy, who is accused of helping manage the young women in Mr. Berlusconi’s orbit, including intervening with the local police when Ms. Mahroug was questioned about a theft last May.
Prosecutors say the three helped procure attractive young women, many of whom had appeared on the reality television shows that have been a staple on Mr. Berlusconi’s television channels for years, for parties at Mr. Berlusconi’s villas.
Related
A parliamentary committee is expected to begin discussion Wednesday on a request by prosecutors to search some of Mr. Berlusconi’s properties. Among these are offices near Milan that they say could contain documents indicating that some women were given rent-free apartments in a complex owned by Mr. Berlusconi in exchange for sex.
The wiretaps published Tuesday seriously damage the superman image that Mr. Berlusconi helped cultivate.
In a conversation published in Corriere della Sera, one young woman named by prosecutors in the prostitution inquiry complained about the prime minister’s looks, saying: “He’s more dead than alive. He’s even become ugly. He should just give up. I hope he’s more generous.”
In another transcript published in Corriere della Sera, Ms. Mahroug compared herself to Noemi Letizia, a woman whose 18th birthday party Mr. Berlusconi attended in the spring of 2009, weeks before his wife filed for divorce, who said she called him “Daddy.” “I call him Daddy, too, but she was his little darling.”
Other wiretapped conversations told of parties in which Mr. Berlusconi, Mr. Fede and Mr. Mora would spend evenings with dozens of women, who would strip down to their underwear while the men watched.
In a televised address on Sunday, a tense-looking Mr. Berlusconi, his face plastered with pancake makeup, attacked the magistrates investigating him, defended his right to privacy and denied that he had ever paid for sex.
For the first time since his wife filed for divorce, Mr. Berlusconi also said he had a steady girlfriend — prompting a wave of speculation over her identity. Italian bookmakers put the best odds on her being a member of Parliament, but a former Miss Piedmont also appeared to be a contender.
Sitting against a backdrop of family photos and a small statuette of a bucking horse, Mr. Berlusconi added that his parties were all conducted with “the most absolute elegance, decorum and calm.”
(the New York Times)
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Berlusconi story
Yesterday the Prime Minister appeared on television, essentially to make three points. Now, as regards his performance on the day, each one of us is obviously free to express a personal opinion as regards appearances and content, but we all saw it and it is available on line in any event.
Berlusconi’s message
1) on the telephone, particularly the young girls that have met him may say things, may boast, may tell stories, may exaggerate and make things up, so what is said on the telephone is of no value whatsoever. It’s a shame that anyone who goes to his (Berlusconi’s) house then has their telephone calls monitored. Although this is a rather broad view of immunity, he would like to have telephone immunity not only for himself, but for everyone that knows him … a kind of contagious immunity that, unfortunately for him, is not yet contemplated in our criminal code, but never mind, they government will soon remedy that; 2) Lele Mora is a great man, a great professional, although it is not quite clear in what field, but apparently in a variety of fields, ranging from trafficking in underage girls through to dealings with the ‘ndrangheta. He is a great professional that also happens to have a previous conviction for drug dealing. There too he was extremely professional and so our Prime Minister, realising that the man was in trouble (Mora is currently on trial for business disasters such as companies going down the tubes, bankruptcies and suchlike), lent him a truckload of money, which Mora will pay back once he has come right and is back on his feet; 3) The Prime Minister has gotten engaged, although total secrecy still reigns as to precisely whom the lucky lady may be. However, I think that sooner or later, one of his newspapers, magazines or friendly television programmes will undoubtedly introduce the one to whom the obliging newspapers are already referring as the “white lady”. At this point we could well say: who cares what the Prime Minister does in his private life, once again he is being spied on, this poor fellow who has already been tried to the limit by people making fun of, or digging through his personal life. If this were indeed so, then it would be reprehensible. As the Prime Minister himself said, everyone is free to do whatever he likes in the sanctity of his own home and he is a free man after all. For years we knew that his marriage to Veronica was on the skids but was kept alive for show. The truth is that the two of them had been separated for years, so, as far as I’m concerned, he was free to do whatever he wanted even before the official divorce and perhaps the Prime Minister’s affairs should in no way cause a scandal or for that matter land up on the front pages of the newspapers. There are however certain limits in this regard. The Prime Minister is free to have as many lovers as he wishes, all the girls he can handle and go to bed with whomever he wants and do whatever he wishes, but subject to two conditions, namely 1) that he does not commit any crime, which is applicable not only to the Prime Minister but to all of us equally. Crimes can also be committed in the sanctity of one’s home and it’s not as if a man can beat his wife inside the home and then go on TV and say that what happens in his own home is his own business. The fact remains that he beat his wife and that is a crime. Take burglars for example, they do their work in other people’s houses since I don’t think they normally burglarise their own homes, so they also cannot claim the right to privacy in the sanctity of the home, so the first condition is that no crime is being committed, even more so if the individual happens to be the head of the government; 2) that the individual does not allow himself to get to a point where what happens in his private life begins to affect his public life, not only because this would make him liable to blackmail, but also because it could cause the individual to make certain choices that they would not normally have made if it weren’t for his behaviour, choices dictated by personal interests rather than by the public interest.
Then there is also a possible third consideration, a third condition, which is that of consistency. Politicians can be bigots, libertines, or whatever else they want to be, as long as they admit it openly. If a government reserves the right to dictate what the citizens get up to between the sheets in their own bedrooms, it obviously cannot then expert to be able to behave differently to how the citizens are expected to behave by law. One cannot apply limitations on others without applying those same limitations on oneself just because one is in the position to pass laws and decrees. One also cannot hoodwink the citizens by claiming to be the defenders of traditional family values of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and then do the exact opposite! This is not merely a case of not practicing what you preach, it’s simply a case of fooling people and now and again those elected to high office have to go back and test the approval of the electorate and must therefore be clear regarding what they stand for. They may say: “we believe and our program stipulates that everyone is free to do as he/she wishes”, but then they must let the people get on with it, they must allow same-sex couples and gays to live in peace and they must grant equal rights to everyone, rather than taking away rights from others while granting those same rights only to themselves. Nor can they introduce draconian laws against prostitution and then frequent those very same circles. We all know what happens abroad. They always tell us that the Americans and the English are moralists because they go and see what is going on in the politicians’ bedrooms, but it’s not true that they are moralists, they are simply people that have a culture of truth. A private individual is free to not tell the truth, but a politician who lies to the voters has to bear the consequences of his actions and no one should make comparisons, but who amongst us doesn’t have a lover? Who amongst us doesn’t love women? Who amongst us doesn’t enjoy sex? This is not the real problem. The fact is that Berlusconi is free to love women, he’s free to have as many lovers as he wishes, he’s free to enjoy sex and he’s indeed free to have sex in the most extreme manner that may come to mind, but what he mustn’t do is try to make himself out to be the champion of certain values and then proceed to be the first in line to overlook those values. This counts only inasmuch as he is subject to the voters because, were he a normal citizen, he could do whatever he wanted, just like the rest of us.
The two main principles, however, are that he mustn’t break the law and that he mustn’t put himself in a position to be blackmailed or to allow his private life to influence his public life because every decision made by the government or by his government majority ultimately affects us and we want to be sure that everything he does is being done freely and is not being influenced, limited or enforced in any way whatsoever.
What we don’t want is someone behind the scenes saying: if you don’t do that then on your head be it. At that point he would no longer truly be free to act as Prime Minister, so he would no longer be a suitable individual to carry out his official duties in the public interest.
So Berlusconi went ahead and made this little speech, but why did he do this? Well, because he knows that today, while we’re here chatting, the investigation report involving him has been disclosed, particularly the part of the documentation that regards him personally and his alleged involvement in extortion and the exploitation and/or facilitation of underage prostitution. The documentation has been sent to the Chamber, to the Junta for the necessary authorisations, and is therefore no longer secret, but why? Well, because it is now in the hands of the dozens of parliamentarians that make up the Junta, parliamentarians that will obviously not, we sincerely hope not, keep it to themselves. Just imagine the potential for blackmail if these documents were only circulated to a handful of people, so it’s better that everything comes out now in the Chamber because, after all, the Chamber is everyone’s house and should, technically speaking, be the proverbial glass house. Whatever there is in the Chamber should be in full view, but precisely for that reason, Berlusconi was fully aware that the Milan Prosecution’s investigation report against him would be released today, so he chose to strike first by telling the people how to interpret the wiretapped telephone conversations between the young girls that visited his homes, how we should interpret the discovery of the sums of money that he gave to Lele Mora, who is accused by the Milan Prosecution, together with Emilio Fede and Nicole Minetti, of sourcing prostitutes to provide solace to the Prime Minister. Those under suspicion include Lombardy Regional Councillor Nicole Minetti, elected to office last May on the Formigoni ticket, former club dancer at the Colorado Cafè and supposedly Berlusconi’s personal dental hygienist, or perhaps even his psychologist, given the Prime Minister’s state of mind, and then Lele Mora, agent to the stars and wannabe starlets, and finally Emilio Fede, Managing Editor of Tg4 television news.
What are… obviously why he suddenly produced a fiancée? Well, obviously because if there really is a fiancée waiting in the wings, then we immediately have to say, as he did, the he always takes his fiancée with him to these parties, so how could anyone believe that anything even remotely illegal and unclean is going on at these parties? I am not a fool. If I were to organise a bunch of tarts, I certainly wouldn’t invite my fiancée along, unless, that is, the fiancée is herself a tart, but how could anyone believe that the Prime Minister would get engaged to a tart, so given that there is no way that this “white lady”, the purest soul in the entire world, would be party to the kind of scenes that the killer press and the communist Magistrature has invented to describe these relaxing do’s at Villa Arcore.
But what are the facts? Where did this investigation originate? This investigation was revealed by Il Fatto Quotidiano in October last year, after it had already commenced, when it was discovered that there was this underage girl, the now famous Ruby, which is merely a nickname because she is in reality nothing more than a poor little Moroccan girl whose parents live in Sicily, a girl who left home, a bit of a drifter, with no fixed abode, who obviously dreamed of getting into show business and television. As soon as she landed in Milan, she was immediately introduced into the right circles, the circles run by Lele Mora and Emilio Fede, who met her at a provincial talent contest in Messina where he was one of the judges. He took her to Arcore and Berlusconi allegedly took pity on her when he heard her tearful tale and, being the good man that he is, he helped her by living her money and tried to get her off the streets, so when she landed up at the Police Station, he immediately ran to her aid by arranging for her to be placed in the custody of one of the Prime Minister’s deputies, namely Ms. Minetti, who agreed to take custody of this young girl. That is what emerged back in October last year. Thus began the magistrature’s investigation, but why, you ask? Well, because what occurred at the Police Station reveals a potential failure to adhere to legal custody procedure as regards this young girl without fixed abode who, still being underage, could not be released on her own recognisance after being accused of a minor theft and simply be let back out onto the streets by the Police. This situation required someone to stand up for this young girl, someone to take custody of her, and that’s when Berlusconi’s phone call came.
Bunga bunga with Ruby
However, what actually came to light during the course of this investigation? We know that this Ruby girl was first invited to Arcore for a Saint Valentine’s party on 14 February last year, which the investigators discovered while examining her mobile phone records. As you probably already know, it is possible to track the movements of a mobile phone, minute by minute, even without resorting to wiretapping, and that is part of the work that is done by the Public Prosecutors’ technical consultants like the famous Gioacchino Genchi. As the mobile phone user moves around, the phone’s location can be tracked by examining the tracking records of the various cell phone towers. We can see where the phone stopped moving and, given the fact that mobile phones don’t move around of their own accord, it is obvious that the mobile phone’s movements show where the user is, which in this case Ruby, so it is clear that on Saint Valentine’s day last year, Ruby was in Milan until 20h50, then she was at Arcore, then there were no further signals because the phone was switched off until 03h40 the next morning and then again at 06h50, still in Arcore, after which the signal was located once again in Milan. Ruby returned to Arcore the following week, on the night between the 27th and the 28th, again two weeks later on the 9th March, then there was a break, after which she was back at Arcore on the night between the 4th and the 5th April and again on the night between the 24th and the 25th April, but what happened exactly on the night between the 24th and the 25th April? The celebration of the Liberation took place at La Scala Opera House in Milan on that evening, obviously attended by both the State President and the Prime Minister. Soon thereafter Vladimir Putin arrived at Arcore, so he and Ruby were also together at Arcore on the 26th April when Ruby returned once again, in Putin’s presence. Her last presence at Arcore was on the night between the 1st and the 2nd of May.
It seems that on the 27th May, Ruby was hurrying back to Arcore when she was arrested after being accused of a minor theft by a friend, at which point she was taken to the Police Station. So she couldn’t get to Arcore because she spent a few hours in the Police Station until Ms. Minetti came to get her out. This means that somewhere around 8 meetings took place between the 14th February and the 1st May last year, and this could be called somewhat frequent.
But why did Ruby become a problem for the Police Station? Well, because she had to be questioned, her identity had to be checked since she didn’t have any identity documents on her. She told them her name and that she was underage, so you can imagine the Berlusconi’s consternation at the thought that this underage girl who had spent 8 nights at his private home was now at the mercy of the Police, and we all know how the Police are don’t we?. When they question someone they aren’t satisfied with minor details, they don’t offer you tea and cake . When they question you, the Police want to get down to brass tacks and find out who you are, what you do and what circles you frequent, but why? Well, because what we’re dealing with here is an underage girl with no fixed abode, without any identification, jobless, a foreigner, so it rings alarm bells.
The Brazilian woman, also a prostitute, who hosted Ruby for some time, hears from Ruby herself that she had been arrested, so what does this Brazilian woman do? She telephones Berlusconi, who was on a State visit to Paris at the time. How is it that a Brazilian prostitute just happens to have Berlusconi’s private mobile phone number at hand just then? She too claims to have met Berlusconi some months earlier and that he had given her his private mobile phone number, telling her that she could phone him in an emergency. One would immediately think “an earthquake” or “a flood”, but no, Ruby being held at a Police Station, now that’s a real emergency! But how on earth would that qualify as an emergency, you ask? Well, because heaven alone knows what that girl may be telling the police officers that are questioning her, we have to get her out of there as soon as possible!
Thus Nicole Minetti, regional councillor gets sent out in the middle of the night, and you all know what happened next.
She gets to the Police Station, we don’t know whether or the Brazilian woman was with her, and says: I have been sent by Prime Minister, although the Prime Minister had already announced her arrival via the mobile phone of the Chief of his security detail, in which he assured the Police that Ms. Minetti would take custody of the girl, and that they had better let her go without looking too closely into her identity because she is the granddaughter of Egyptian President Mubarac. Total consternation at the Police Station: My God, we have laid hands on the granddaughter of the President of a foreign Country and we risk causing an International incident. The Prime Minister phones and orders that the girl be released into the custody of a regional councillor, how can we refuse? They quickly carry out a cursory identification procedure and they don’t do what they should have done, which they didn’t have time to do in any event, namely to properly identify the girl and send her to a suitable shelter. The Corriere Della Sera later found out that, on that night, there were some 6 or 7 shelters willing and able to accommodate the girl, with space available, while some liar at the Police Station said, after the fact, that they had asked around at the shelters but none of them had any space available, which was a lie!
So these policemen and Police officials are now forced to lie and to do things they shouldn’t do, but why? Well, because the Prime Minister is abusing his powers rather than merely exercising them because the Prime Minister’s powers certainly do not include the right to tell the Police what to do when they arrest an underage Moroccan girl without fixed abode and, if he does so, then he is abusing his poker and they, intimidated by the fact that Berlusconi personally phones claiming that the girl is Mubarac’s granddaughter and that this could spark off an International incident with Egypt if she held, these guys land up doing things that they shouldn’t do, totally ignoring the instructions given to them telephonically by Children’s Court Prosecutor Anna Maria Fiorillo, who ordered them to hold the girl there, establish her identity and, if they could not establish her identity at that time of night, to accommodate her in a suitable shelter until the next day. However, Ruby must not be held, personal orders from Berlusconi himself, so they totally ignore what the Prosecutor had told them to do and instead they let her go with Ms. Minetti, Berlusconi’s personal envoy, whom he assured them would take care of her. The fact is that she did not in fact take care of the girl at all! As soon as they were out of the Police Station, Ms. Minetti left the girl in the street, at which point the girl went straight back to the Brazilian prostitute who had phoned Berlusconi earlier.
At this point, the investigations continued and Ruby was questioned on numerous occasions by the Milan Prosecution, but why? Well, because in the days following her arrest, Ruby once again identified by the Police, having once again escape from the shelter where she had been placed and where she in turn claims to have been robbed. She claims that someone stole seven thousand Euro in cash that she had been carrying around with her. When the Police intervened, they arrested a thief who had already managed to spend about 2 thousand Euro and they thus returned 5 thousand Euro to the girl. But the question is how does a young girl such as this walk around with all this money in 500-Euro bills? After further questioning, etc., it unsurprisingly turns out that Berlusconi had given her that money, what a sweetheart! More investigations, which reveal that Ruby was not the only visitor to Arcore during the period in question, but there are dozens of other girls that pay regular visits to Arcore, tagging along with Lele Mora or Emilio Fede or Ms. Minetti or all three of them. They often even arrive in escorted vehicles because Fede has his own escort, as does Berlusconi. Sometimes these girls come in via the main gate in Lele Mora’s SUV, there’s even a film of this in the Oggi weekly. On other occasions they come in through a back entrance because the front gate at Arcore is guarded by the Carabinieri.
So the investigators discover this prostitution ring and they then start surveillance on these girls’ telephones. They are heard talking all about the things that go an at Arcore. They are heard talking about this Bunga Bunga, which the investigators didn’t understand at first, that is until Ruby herself is heard to say: Berlusconi told me that he had instituted this Bunga Bunga ritual, which he learned from Gheddafi, after discovering that this Bunga Bunga was a popular pastime in the Gheddafi’s Harem, but what is it actually? It’s a term meaning parties and rustic, bucolic orgies, but in fact it is a rather terrible practice that involves the masochism and sodomy of young girls that are rewarded after prancing around half-naked in front of the Prime Minister, after which they wait expectantly for a few minutes because, next comes a dinner and then the after-dinner dancing, shows and modelling, with the Prime Minister obviously providing the outfits, all of which takes place in like a sad little discotheque located in the basement at Arcore. These shows give the girls a chance to advertise their wares because only a few of them ever get chosen to stay the night. These are the ones that earn the most and that have a better chance of advancing their careers in the entertainment world, or so they think, and who knows, perhaps even in the political world, so the prize in the end is the Bunga Bunga.
So, according to these girls, all the Bunga Bunga really is, is a quickie with the Prime Minister, not Ruby however, who says that she only ever watched these shows but never took part personally and indeed that she has never had sex with the Prime Minister.
At this point the magistrates are faced with two crimes, that is why they’re investigating, not for the mere pleasure of seeing what the Prime Minister gets up to but merely because they have discovered that, in his own home, the Prime Minister has committed yet another crime, namely his telephone call to the Milan Police Station with lies, threats and intimidation.
The end users of underage prostitutes
But what precisely is the crime that the magistrates believe is being committed at Villa Arcore during these “parties”, these sad little parties that are apparently also attended now and again by Emilio Fede and Carlo il Rossella. These are old men, so you can just imagine how sad it is when these young girls of 16/18/20 years of age, showing off their bodies to these 70 or 80 year old men who drool at the sight? A scene so pathetic that it precludes any concept of joy, party atmosphere and love of life that they may claim exists. The crime that the magistrates believe has been committed at Berlusconi’s home is that of underage prostitution and here I would like to read you an excerpt from article 600-bis, clause two of the Penal Code, which stipulates that: “anyone who causes an underage individual younger than 18 years of age to prostitute him/herself, or who encourages or exploits prostitution shall be liable to serve a jail sentence of between 6 and 12 years, as well as pay a fine of between 15,493 and 154,937,000 Euro”. That is the charge that is being made against Fede, Mora and Ms. Minetti, but not against Berlusconi because this constitutes exploitation and encouragement of underage prostitution. Berlusconi faces the less serious charge contemplated in clause two of the Penal Code, namely that of being the end user of underage prostitution, without prejudice to the “aggravating circumstance being when someone performs sexual acts with a minor between 14 and 18 years of age in Exchange for money or other financial consideration, who shall be liable to a jail term of between 3 and 6 months and a fine of not less than 5,164 Euro”. Last year, Ghedini said with regard to another case, namely the Daddario affair, that at worst Ms. Daddario went with Berlusconi, but Berlusconi cannot be accused of exploiting prostitution because she was paid by Tarantino, so at worst he was the end user. In this case, however, he cannot get away with saying that “someone else paid her” because the fact remains that he used the services o fan underage prostitute and it was he who gave her the money, via his accountant Giuseppe Spinelli, but how and why would Berlusconi’s long-serving accountant pay these girls that prostitute themselves? Paid with apartments in the Milan 2 residential complex, rent free, with even their utility bills being paid for them, paid with envelopes bulging with money, paid with presents, expensive clothes, jewellery, etc. Those are the prosecution’s allegations, the main charge being the crime committed at Arcore.
A crime that could well be aggravated by another crime, with clause three of the very same article 600 stipulating that: “anyone using underage individuals younger than 18 years of age to put on shows or produce pornographic material, or who causes underage individuals younger than 18 to participate in pornographic shows shall be liable to serve a prison sentence of between 6 and 12 years, as well as a fine of between 25-thousand and 258-thousand Euro”. From what they tell us, these girls were not just there to take part in the Bunga Bunga ritual, but even before this, in order to be selected, to be nominated to spend the night and to earn more money, as much as 5 to 7-thousand Euro per night, they were obliged to cavort naked or at least half-naked around the edges of the swimming pool in dances, dressed up as nurses, policewomen, etc. Here too, if the girls taking part in these shows are underage, the individual that makes them do so is committing a crime and that’s why the Milan Prosecution is busy investigating the events. After all, anyone who has a daughter of their own should be thankful that the Penal Code punishes this kind of behaviour. At least we know that certain things are prohibited, that there is no question of privacy, no intrusion into one’s private life, no voyeurism and we really couldn’t give a damn about whatever it is that Berlusconi gets up to with women, as long as he is not committing any crime. The Milan Prosecution believes that he has indeed committed a crime, so what are they supposed to do about it, simply look the other way perhaps? Fortunately here in Italy they are obliged to prosecute whenever a crime has been uncovered.
So as we were saying about yesterday’s speech, what are the facts and the reasons behind it? Up to now, Berlusconi’s purpose as regards his court cases has always been to either make money and increase his power base, or to conceal the crimes he had committed in the past precisely to make money and increase his power base, think of the cases, namely All Iberian, slush funds, Financial Police, Mills, financial fraud, bribery of politicians, including Craxi, and illegal funding, but this is something totally different. He is a sick old man, a very sick old man suffering from an illness that was revealed two years ago by Veronica Lario, the woman that knows him better than anyone else and perhaps the one that loved him more than anyone else, because she stated that “I can’t go on like this any longer” because I no longer carry him here in my heart. Those that are close to him now must help him because he is unwell, he has this thing for underage girls!
No one was prepared to listen to her then and indeed many people said that Ms. Lario had become a communist, that she was at heaven alone knows which Bolshevik Service’s service while, in reality, Ms. Lario was merely warning that “this man is unwell!”, that this man deserved to have some friend, relation of perhaps one of his children to take him in hand, to look after him and to tell him to get out of politics, go and look for some treatment for your ailment because you’re busy single-handedly destroying yourself. That is precisely what is happening now, and it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with money, it is simply an obvious pathological problem, which Berlusconi is trying to conceal by letting the entire Country go to the dogs because, as regards his job, never mind his legitimate impediment claims that he spends 24 hours out of every 24 running this Country, in fact he is spending most of his time going with tarts and whatever little time he has left he spends trying to concealing the fact that he is going with tarts! The fact is that if you have one whore every now and then, you are still be in control of the situation, but when you get to the point of having 20/30/40 girls brought in every night, you can probably imagine how many people there are out there who could demand something from him in return for their silence, and imagine just how many manage to slip through! How many of these girls go around telling stories and there’s always a risk that one of these could just land up in front of a policeman and could begin to spill the beans, but why? Well, because there are simply too many of them out there, that’s why! No Middle-Eastern Harem has ever experienced anything like the things that we have read about already, those that we undoubtedly will still read about in the investigation report and those that are emerging from the Chamber of Deputies.
Where is the proof of these crimes, according to the Prosecution? The telephone call to the Police Station and all that happened immediately thereafter is recorded, minute by minute, in the policemen’s statements and the testimony provided by Public Prosecutor Fiorillo, the telephone calls and telephone records of the girls who explained what they went there to do and who clearly did precisely that, as witnessed by all of their telephone records, all located by the same mobile phone tower at Arcore. There is one recorded telephone conversation that we have not yet seen but that Il Fatto Quotidiano has already mentioned reveals Berlusconi talking to Ms.Minetti, in which he allegedly says that he knew that Ruby was underage, but the judges will never be able to prove that, except that he betrayed himself yet again, not only because he said this to Ms. Minetti whose phone was under surveillance at the time, but also because when you phone the Police Station to order that the girl be released to Ms. Minetti’s custody, it automatically means that you were fully aware of the fact that this girl was underage, otherwise why on earth would she need to be put in anyone’s custody in the first place? Girls over 18 years of age are free to wherever they like and it’s only underage girls that have to be in someone’s custody, so if Berlusconi went and found a custodian for that girl, namely Ms.Minetti, it can only mean that he knew that Ruby was underage. So with that he incriminated himself. They questioned two girls who took part in these parties together with Ms. Minetti and, unfortunately for him they didn’t have strong-enough stomach and landed up spewing out what they witnessed, so they were questioned by the magistrates and spilt the beans on what they had seen.
Finally there’s the matter of the envelopes full of money that were discovered. A number of them bore the words “Silvio B.”, can you guess who that could be? Envelopes containing 1000/2000/5000 Euro found in the girls’ homes in this Milano 2 complex, made available to them by Berlusconi. How is he going to talk his way out of that one? As with every other legal case, he claims that the Milan Prosecution doesn’t have jurisdiction because his house is at Arcore, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Monza Prosecution, but his problem is that the most serious offence, namely the crime of extortion, namely telephone call to a Public Official in order to force him, under threat, to release Ruby, actually occurred in Milan and since this is the most serious of the charges, which carries a penalty of I think 12 year imprisonment, the jurisdiction for the crime that he tried to conceal, namely the underage prostitution that took place in Monza lies right here with Milan, so what now? Now they are saying that the normal Court doesn’t have jurisdiction and that the case must be heard by the Ministerial Court since Berlusconi is Prime Minister and the Constitution stipulates that any proceedings resulting from crimes committed by the Prime Minister while in office are subject to prior authorisation by Parliament and then the Ministerial Court, However, the Prosecution has already responded, by stating the crimes were not committed during the course of doing his job as Prime Minister because if he had been acting as Prime Minister, he would never have committed extortion in the first place.
So while it’s one thing to manipulate a tender, which undoubtedly qualifies as abuse of power and is thus a crime committed while exercising your powers as Prime Minister, and while it’s one thing to appoint three secretaries because they happen to be your lovers, even though they may be useless and the official selection procedures have been bypassed, this qualifies as abuse of your powers as Prime Minister, but why? Well, because appointing secretaries falls within the scope of your powers, although you still abused those powers. But it’s a totally different matter when you phone the Police Station and demand the release of a young girl certainly does not fall within the scope of the Prime Minister’s powers. It’s up to the Police to make that decision and the Police Services in any event report to the Internal Affairs Ministry.
Mavalà Ghedini’s own-goal
That is why in this case there is no need for Parliamentary authorisation to proceed against Berlusconi and he will not be tried by the Ministerial Court. He must be tried by a normal Court. So why then has the case docket landed up before the Junta, together with a request for the Chamber’s authorisation to proceed? Well, because just the other day, the Prosecution attempted to conduct a search at the offices of Berlusconi’s accountant, namely Mr. Spinelli, but Attorney Ghedini intervened immediately, saying that: you cannot enter either Mr. Spinelli’s home or his offices, but why? Well, because Mr. Spinelli is just like Berlusconi and so, searching Mr. Spinelli’s premises is like searching Berlusconi’s premises, which cannot be searched without Parliamentary authorisation to proceed with the search. Mr. Spinelli is like an extension of Berlusconi and even the immunity is contagious, extending to Spinelli even thug he has never been a parliamentarian. Naturally, the Milan judges are being understandably and scrupulously prudent in this matter, even thug they could simply have laughed off such a puerile interpretation, but what does Mr. Spinelli have to do with Berlusconi anyway? Instead, they said: Okay, then we’ll ask Parliament for permission to search Berlusconi’s premises as well as Spinelli’s. What an own-goal that is for Ghedini, because now the reports have all landed up in Parliament and instead of remaining safely closeted in the safe of the Milan Prosecution, they are now open for all to see.
Of course, we all already know what the majority-controlled Junta will do. They will simply deny permission to proceed with any search of Berlusconi’s premises and therefore also those of Spinelli, but anyway, what do you think the investigators would have uncovered at Spinelli’s premises? Everyone has known since last October that the Milan Prosecution was busy investigating the Ruby affair and we’re now in January, so would he really still be hiding any incriminating material relating to the payments made to these girls in his offices? In any event, this fact has already been proven by other means. Remember the envelopes that were found and the girls’ trips to go and collect their payments from Mr. Spinelli. Furthermore, they even phoned him to complain that some of their neighbours had received more than they did, etc., so there was no real need for any search of his premises and this was all just a ploy, which, thanks to Ghedini’s own-goal, means that the reports are now out in the open.
So what happens next? The Chamber will vote, firstly Junta will vote on whether or not to authorise the search, then the Chamber itself will vote, probably against allowing the search of Berlusconi and Spinelli’s premises, but in any event the magistrates believe that they have sufficient grounds, so sufficient in fact that they want to go to trial immediately with the charges against Berlusconi in terms of the expedited procedure, but what is this expedited procedure anyway? Expedited judgement is a special procedure whereby there is no initial hearing. As you know, what currently happens is that preliminary investigations are conducted, then the docket is forwarded to the defence, which then has a few days time to ask the Public Prosecutor to investigate further on certain issues or to question certain witnesses if they have nota s yet been heard. Once the Prosecutor has done this, he can then be asked whether or not the matter is to be remanded for trial and if the Preliminary Investigations Magistrate believes it should be, then the actual trial begins. The expedited procedure instead, is an immediate matter. The Public Prosecutor asks the Preliminary Investigations Magistrate to immediately remand the individual for trial, without holding any preliminary hearing first and without lodging the case docket first, immediately, but why? Well, because the evidence that has been gathered is so overwhelming that these additional steps are meaningless. This is an alternative to the normal procedure and is specifically designed to expedite trial proceedings in cases where there is really nothing to discuss. Obviously the defendant is entitled to his defence, however, everything happens very quickly, so they have summonsed Berlusconi to appear next week, offering him three possible dates, given his many commitments, because prior to the expedited procedure the accused has to be questioned and, if he refuses, then worse for him. The tight deadlines are a very interesting feature, because it means that the evidence they have must be unquestionable and judgement must be swift. The expedited proceedings must commence within 90 days from when Berlusconi’s name was first entered in the Accused’s register, which in this case happened just before Charismas, on the 21st December to be precise, so judgement must begin by no later than the 21st March and now we’ll see what Ghedini and company are going to come up with to try to prevent this from happening. They have already announced that they intend to lodge appeals left, right and centre, including the UN, Amnesty International and heaven alone knows what other bodies, but if the law takes its course, by 21 March Berlusconi should be on trial for consorting with underage prostitutes, perhaps aggravated and perhaps not by those pornographic shows involving underage girls, as well as extortion, for which he risks going to jail for many years.
I would like to say one more thing in closing and that is that, as I said before, that the problem is not the fact that Berlusconi is under investigation because that is merely a consequence of the real problem because he is in any event already under investigation for various other alleged crimes including bribery and corruption, financial fraud, tax fraud, illegal funding, undue appropriation, and even for Mafia activities. At this very moment, Berlusconi is even under investigation for the Florence killings, so one could say: well, under those conditions, there is no way he can continue as Prime Minister. So the mere fact that he is under investigation for extortion and involvement in underage prostitution is not the real problem, which is the state of our Prime Minister if he feels the need to participate in the kind of activities revealed by this investigation. Although such activities are illegal and, since everyone is supposedly equal before the law, he must at all costs be brought to book, in this case the legal aspect is almost secondary to the human aspect, which has nothing to do with his personal and therefore extremely private health conditions, but rather the fact that we are being governed by a man whose psychological and physical condition is extremely suspect, a man who would undoubtedly be impeached if this were any other Country, irrespective of what went on at his house and whether or not it was indeed a crime but, unfortunately impeachment doesn’t exist here in Italy. However we still have a Head of State that could enlighten us and who could finally answer the question already posed in the Economist back in 2001 and one that everyone should be asking, even the members of the centre-right, namely: How can a man such as this, one that is so obviously sick and resorts to the kind of things mentioned by dozens of young girls and that lead him to phone the Milan Police Station from Paris to rescue, cover up and silence people, and to dish out envelopes left right and centre to girls whom he allegedly doesn’t even know, how can such a man continue to govern the Country, even a derelict one like ours is at the moment?
Rather than sending him to jail, we should send him for specialist treatment, make him better and possibly get him out of Palazzo Chigi. At the moment, however, given the fact the we have no real, credible opposition, the only ones that can do what is necessary are those that are senior to him, which means the Head of State. Who knows whether he is able to understand the fact that we cannot go on with a government that is headed up by someone such as this.
Berlusconi’s message
1) on the telephone, particularly the young girls that have met him may say things, may boast, may tell stories, may exaggerate and make things up, so what is said on the telephone is of no value whatsoever. It’s a shame that anyone who goes to his (Berlusconi’s) house then has their telephone calls monitored. Although this is a rather broad view of immunity, he would like to have telephone immunity not only for himself, but for everyone that knows him … a kind of contagious immunity that, unfortunately for him, is not yet contemplated in our criminal code, but never mind, they government will soon remedy that; 2) Lele Mora is a great man, a great professional, although it is not quite clear in what field, but apparently in a variety of fields, ranging from trafficking in underage girls through to dealings with the ‘ndrangheta. He is a great professional that also happens to have a previous conviction for drug dealing. There too he was extremely professional and so our Prime Minister, realising that the man was in trouble (Mora is currently on trial for business disasters such as companies going down the tubes, bankruptcies and suchlike), lent him a truckload of money, which Mora will pay back once he has come right and is back on his feet; 3) The Prime Minister has gotten engaged, although total secrecy still reigns as to precisely whom the lucky lady may be. However, I think that sooner or later, one of his newspapers, magazines or friendly television programmes will undoubtedly introduce the one to whom the obliging newspapers are already referring as the “white lady”. At this point we could well say: who cares what the Prime Minister does in his private life, once again he is being spied on, this poor fellow who has already been tried to the limit by people making fun of, or digging through his personal life. If this were indeed so, then it would be reprehensible. As the Prime Minister himself said, everyone is free to do whatever he likes in the sanctity of his own home and he is a free man after all. For years we knew that his marriage to Veronica was on the skids but was kept alive for show. The truth is that the two of them had been separated for years, so, as far as I’m concerned, he was free to do whatever he wanted even before the official divorce and perhaps the Prime Minister’s affairs should in no way cause a scandal or for that matter land up on the front pages of the newspapers. There are however certain limits in this regard. The Prime Minister is free to have as many lovers as he wishes, all the girls he can handle and go to bed with whomever he wants and do whatever he wishes, but subject to two conditions, namely 1) that he does not commit any crime, which is applicable not only to the Prime Minister but to all of us equally. Crimes can also be committed in the sanctity of one’s home and it’s not as if a man can beat his wife inside the home and then go on TV and say that what happens in his own home is his own business. The fact remains that he beat his wife and that is a crime. Take burglars for example, they do their work in other people’s houses since I don’t think they normally burglarise their own homes, so they also cannot claim the right to privacy in the sanctity of the home, so the first condition is that no crime is being committed, even more so if the individual happens to be the head of the government; 2) that the individual does not allow himself to get to a point where what happens in his private life begins to affect his public life, not only because this would make him liable to blackmail, but also because it could cause the individual to make certain choices that they would not normally have made if it weren’t for his behaviour, choices dictated by personal interests rather than by the public interest.
Then there is also a possible third consideration, a third condition, which is that of consistency. Politicians can be bigots, libertines, or whatever else they want to be, as long as they admit it openly. If a government reserves the right to dictate what the citizens get up to between the sheets in their own bedrooms, it obviously cannot then expert to be able to behave differently to how the citizens are expected to behave by law. One cannot apply limitations on others without applying those same limitations on oneself just because one is in the position to pass laws and decrees. One also cannot hoodwink the citizens by claiming to be the defenders of traditional family values of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and then do the exact opposite! This is not merely a case of not practicing what you preach, it’s simply a case of fooling people and now and again those elected to high office have to go back and test the approval of the electorate and must therefore be clear regarding what they stand for. They may say: “we believe and our program stipulates that everyone is free to do as he/she wishes”, but then they must let the people get on with it, they must allow same-sex couples and gays to live in peace and they must grant equal rights to everyone, rather than taking away rights from others while granting those same rights only to themselves. Nor can they introduce draconian laws against prostitution and then frequent those very same circles. We all know what happens abroad. They always tell us that the Americans and the English are moralists because they go and see what is going on in the politicians’ bedrooms, but it’s not true that they are moralists, they are simply people that have a culture of truth. A private individual is free to not tell the truth, but a politician who lies to the voters has to bear the consequences of his actions and no one should make comparisons, but who amongst us doesn’t have a lover? Who amongst us doesn’t love women? Who amongst us doesn’t enjoy sex? This is not the real problem. The fact is that Berlusconi is free to love women, he’s free to have as many lovers as he wishes, he’s free to enjoy sex and he’s indeed free to have sex in the most extreme manner that may come to mind, but what he mustn’t do is try to make himself out to be the champion of certain values and then proceed to be the first in line to overlook those values. This counts only inasmuch as he is subject to the voters because, were he a normal citizen, he could do whatever he wanted, just like the rest of us.
The two main principles, however, are that he mustn’t break the law and that he mustn’t put himself in a position to be blackmailed or to allow his private life to influence his public life because every decision made by the government or by his government majority ultimately affects us and we want to be sure that everything he does is being done freely and is not being influenced, limited or enforced in any way whatsoever.
What we don’t want is someone behind the scenes saying: if you don’t do that then on your head be it. At that point he would no longer truly be free to act as Prime Minister, so he would no longer be a suitable individual to carry out his official duties in the public interest.
So Berlusconi went ahead and made this little speech, but why did he do this? Well, because he knows that today, while we’re here chatting, the investigation report involving him has been disclosed, particularly the part of the documentation that regards him personally and his alleged involvement in extortion and the exploitation and/or facilitation of underage prostitution. The documentation has been sent to the Chamber, to the Junta for the necessary authorisations, and is therefore no longer secret, but why? Well, because it is now in the hands of the dozens of parliamentarians that make up the Junta, parliamentarians that will obviously not, we sincerely hope not, keep it to themselves. Just imagine the potential for blackmail if these documents were only circulated to a handful of people, so it’s better that everything comes out now in the Chamber because, after all, the Chamber is everyone’s house and should, technically speaking, be the proverbial glass house. Whatever there is in the Chamber should be in full view, but precisely for that reason, Berlusconi was fully aware that the Milan Prosecution’s investigation report against him would be released today, so he chose to strike first by telling the people how to interpret the wiretapped telephone conversations between the young girls that visited his homes, how we should interpret the discovery of the sums of money that he gave to Lele Mora, who is accused by the Milan Prosecution, together with Emilio Fede and Nicole Minetti, of sourcing prostitutes to provide solace to the Prime Minister. Those under suspicion include Lombardy Regional Councillor Nicole Minetti, elected to office last May on the Formigoni ticket, former club dancer at the Colorado Cafè and supposedly Berlusconi’s personal dental hygienist, or perhaps even his psychologist, given the Prime Minister’s state of mind, and then Lele Mora, agent to the stars and wannabe starlets, and finally Emilio Fede, Managing Editor of Tg4 television news.
What are… obviously why he suddenly produced a fiancée? Well, obviously because if there really is a fiancée waiting in the wings, then we immediately have to say, as he did, the he always takes his fiancée with him to these parties, so how could anyone believe that anything even remotely illegal and unclean is going on at these parties? I am not a fool. If I were to organise a bunch of tarts, I certainly wouldn’t invite my fiancée along, unless, that is, the fiancée is herself a tart, but how could anyone believe that the Prime Minister would get engaged to a tart, so given that there is no way that this “white lady”, the purest soul in the entire world, would be party to the kind of scenes that the killer press and the communist Magistrature has invented to describe these relaxing do’s at Villa Arcore.
But what are the facts? Where did this investigation originate? This investigation was revealed by Il Fatto Quotidiano in October last year, after it had already commenced, when it was discovered that there was this underage girl, the now famous Ruby, which is merely a nickname because she is in reality nothing more than a poor little Moroccan girl whose parents live in Sicily, a girl who left home, a bit of a drifter, with no fixed abode, who obviously dreamed of getting into show business and television. As soon as she landed in Milan, she was immediately introduced into the right circles, the circles run by Lele Mora and Emilio Fede, who met her at a provincial talent contest in Messina where he was one of the judges. He took her to Arcore and Berlusconi allegedly took pity on her when he heard her tearful tale and, being the good man that he is, he helped her by living her money and tried to get her off the streets, so when she landed up at the Police Station, he immediately ran to her aid by arranging for her to be placed in the custody of one of the Prime Minister’s deputies, namely Ms. Minetti, who agreed to take custody of this young girl. That is what emerged back in October last year. Thus began the magistrature’s investigation, but why, you ask? Well, because what occurred at the Police Station reveals a potential failure to adhere to legal custody procedure as regards this young girl without fixed abode who, still being underage, could not be released on her own recognisance after being accused of a minor theft and simply be let back out onto the streets by the Police. This situation required someone to stand up for this young girl, someone to take custody of her, and that’s when Berlusconi’s phone call came.
Bunga bunga with Ruby
However, what actually came to light during the course of this investigation? We know that this Ruby girl was first invited to Arcore for a Saint Valentine’s party on 14 February last year, which the investigators discovered while examining her mobile phone records. As you probably already know, it is possible to track the movements of a mobile phone, minute by minute, even without resorting to wiretapping, and that is part of the work that is done by the Public Prosecutors’ technical consultants like the famous Gioacchino Genchi. As the mobile phone user moves around, the phone’s location can be tracked by examining the tracking records of the various cell phone towers. We can see where the phone stopped moving and, given the fact that mobile phones don’t move around of their own accord, it is obvious that the mobile phone’s movements show where the user is, which in this case Ruby, so it is clear that on Saint Valentine’s day last year, Ruby was in Milan until 20h50, then she was at Arcore, then there were no further signals because the phone was switched off until 03h40 the next morning and then again at 06h50, still in Arcore, after which the signal was located once again in Milan. Ruby returned to Arcore the following week, on the night between the 27th and the 28th, again two weeks later on the 9th March, then there was a break, after which she was back at Arcore on the night between the 4th and the 5th April and again on the night between the 24th and the 25th April, but what happened exactly on the night between the 24th and the 25th April? The celebration of the Liberation took place at La Scala Opera House in Milan on that evening, obviously attended by both the State President and the Prime Minister. Soon thereafter Vladimir Putin arrived at Arcore, so he and Ruby were also together at Arcore on the 26th April when Ruby returned once again, in Putin’s presence. Her last presence at Arcore was on the night between the 1st and the 2nd of May.
It seems that on the 27th May, Ruby was hurrying back to Arcore when she was arrested after being accused of a minor theft by a friend, at which point she was taken to the Police Station. So she couldn’t get to Arcore because she spent a few hours in the Police Station until Ms. Minetti came to get her out. This means that somewhere around 8 meetings took place between the 14th February and the 1st May last year, and this could be called somewhat frequent.
But why did Ruby become a problem for the Police Station? Well, because she had to be questioned, her identity had to be checked since she didn’t have any identity documents on her. She told them her name and that she was underage, so you can imagine the Berlusconi’s consternation at the thought that this underage girl who had spent 8 nights at his private home was now at the mercy of the Police, and we all know how the Police are don’t we?. When they question someone they aren’t satisfied with minor details, they don’t offer you tea and cake . When they question you, the Police want to get down to brass tacks and find out who you are, what you do and what circles you frequent, but why? Well, because what we’re dealing with here is an underage girl with no fixed abode, without any identification, jobless, a foreigner, so it rings alarm bells.
The Brazilian woman, also a prostitute, who hosted Ruby for some time, hears from Ruby herself that she had been arrested, so what does this Brazilian woman do? She telephones Berlusconi, who was on a State visit to Paris at the time. How is it that a Brazilian prostitute just happens to have Berlusconi’s private mobile phone number at hand just then? She too claims to have met Berlusconi some months earlier and that he had given her his private mobile phone number, telling her that she could phone him in an emergency. One would immediately think “an earthquake” or “a flood”, but no, Ruby being held at a Police Station, now that’s a real emergency! But how on earth would that qualify as an emergency, you ask? Well, because heaven alone knows what that girl may be telling the police officers that are questioning her, we have to get her out of there as soon as possible!
Thus Nicole Minetti, regional councillor gets sent out in the middle of the night, and you all know what happened next.
She gets to the Police Station, we don’t know whether or the Brazilian woman was with her, and says: I have been sent by Prime Minister, although the Prime Minister had already announced her arrival via the mobile phone of the Chief of his security detail, in which he assured the Police that Ms. Minetti would take custody of the girl, and that they had better let her go without looking too closely into her identity because she is the granddaughter of Egyptian President Mubarac. Total consternation at the Police Station: My God, we have laid hands on the granddaughter of the President of a foreign Country and we risk causing an International incident. The Prime Minister phones and orders that the girl be released into the custody of a regional councillor, how can we refuse? They quickly carry out a cursory identification procedure and they don’t do what they should have done, which they didn’t have time to do in any event, namely to properly identify the girl and send her to a suitable shelter. The Corriere Della Sera later found out that, on that night, there were some 6 or 7 shelters willing and able to accommodate the girl, with space available, while some liar at the Police Station said, after the fact, that they had asked around at the shelters but none of them had any space available, which was a lie!
So these policemen and Police officials are now forced to lie and to do things they shouldn’t do, but why? Well, because the Prime Minister is abusing his powers rather than merely exercising them because the Prime Minister’s powers certainly do not include the right to tell the Police what to do when they arrest an underage Moroccan girl without fixed abode and, if he does so, then he is abusing his poker and they, intimidated by the fact that Berlusconi personally phones claiming that the girl is Mubarac’s granddaughter and that this could spark off an International incident with Egypt if she held, these guys land up doing things that they shouldn’t do, totally ignoring the instructions given to them telephonically by Children’s Court Prosecutor Anna Maria Fiorillo, who ordered them to hold the girl there, establish her identity and, if they could not establish her identity at that time of night, to accommodate her in a suitable shelter until the next day. However, Ruby must not be held, personal orders from Berlusconi himself, so they totally ignore what the Prosecutor had told them to do and instead they let her go with Ms. Minetti, Berlusconi’s personal envoy, whom he assured them would take care of her. The fact is that she did not in fact take care of the girl at all! As soon as they were out of the Police Station, Ms. Minetti left the girl in the street, at which point the girl went straight back to the Brazilian prostitute who had phoned Berlusconi earlier.
At this point, the investigations continued and Ruby was questioned on numerous occasions by the Milan Prosecution, but why? Well, because in the days following her arrest, Ruby once again identified by the Police, having once again escape from the shelter where she had been placed and where she in turn claims to have been robbed. She claims that someone stole seven thousand Euro in cash that she had been carrying around with her. When the Police intervened, they arrested a thief who had already managed to spend about 2 thousand Euro and they thus returned 5 thousand Euro to the girl. But the question is how does a young girl such as this walk around with all this money in 500-Euro bills? After further questioning, etc., it unsurprisingly turns out that Berlusconi had given her that money, what a sweetheart! More investigations, which reveal that Ruby was not the only visitor to Arcore during the period in question, but there are dozens of other girls that pay regular visits to Arcore, tagging along with Lele Mora or Emilio Fede or Ms. Minetti or all three of them. They often even arrive in escorted vehicles because Fede has his own escort, as does Berlusconi. Sometimes these girls come in via the main gate in Lele Mora’s SUV, there’s even a film of this in the Oggi weekly. On other occasions they come in through a back entrance because the front gate at Arcore is guarded by the Carabinieri.
So the investigators discover this prostitution ring and they then start surveillance on these girls’ telephones. They are heard talking all about the things that go an at Arcore. They are heard talking about this Bunga Bunga, which the investigators didn’t understand at first, that is until Ruby herself is heard to say: Berlusconi told me that he had instituted this Bunga Bunga ritual, which he learned from Gheddafi, after discovering that this Bunga Bunga was a popular pastime in the Gheddafi’s Harem, but what is it actually? It’s a term meaning parties and rustic, bucolic orgies, but in fact it is a rather terrible practice that involves the masochism and sodomy of young girls that are rewarded after prancing around half-naked in front of the Prime Minister, after which they wait expectantly for a few minutes because, next comes a dinner and then the after-dinner dancing, shows and modelling, with the Prime Minister obviously providing the outfits, all of which takes place in like a sad little discotheque located in the basement at Arcore. These shows give the girls a chance to advertise their wares because only a few of them ever get chosen to stay the night. These are the ones that earn the most and that have a better chance of advancing their careers in the entertainment world, or so they think, and who knows, perhaps even in the political world, so the prize in the end is the Bunga Bunga.
So, according to these girls, all the Bunga Bunga really is, is a quickie with the Prime Minister, not Ruby however, who says that she only ever watched these shows but never took part personally and indeed that she has never had sex with the Prime Minister.
At this point the magistrates are faced with two crimes, that is why they’re investigating, not for the mere pleasure of seeing what the Prime Minister gets up to but merely because they have discovered that, in his own home, the Prime Minister has committed yet another crime, namely his telephone call to the Milan Police Station with lies, threats and intimidation.
The end users of underage prostitutes
But what precisely is the crime that the magistrates believe is being committed at Villa Arcore during these “parties”, these sad little parties that are apparently also attended now and again by Emilio Fede and Carlo il Rossella. These are old men, so you can just imagine how sad it is when these young girls of 16/18/20 years of age, showing off their bodies to these 70 or 80 year old men who drool at the sight? A scene so pathetic that it precludes any concept of joy, party atmosphere and love of life that they may claim exists. The crime that the magistrates believe has been committed at Berlusconi’s home is that of underage prostitution and here I would like to read you an excerpt from article 600-bis, clause two of the Penal Code, which stipulates that: “anyone who causes an underage individual younger than 18 years of age to prostitute him/herself, or who encourages or exploits prostitution shall be liable to serve a jail sentence of between 6 and 12 years, as well as pay a fine of between 15,493 and 154,937,000 Euro”. That is the charge that is being made against Fede, Mora and Ms. Minetti, but not against Berlusconi because this constitutes exploitation and encouragement of underage prostitution. Berlusconi faces the less serious charge contemplated in clause two of the Penal Code, namely that of being the end user of underage prostitution, without prejudice to the “aggravating circumstance being when someone performs sexual acts with a minor between 14 and 18 years of age in Exchange for money or other financial consideration, who shall be liable to a jail term of between 3 and 6 months and a fine of not less than 5,164 Euro”. Last year, Ghedini said with regard to another case, namely the Daddario affair, that at worst Ms. Daddario went with Berlusconi, but Berlusconi cannot be accused of exploiting prostitution because she was paid by Tarantino, so at worst he was the end user. In this case, however, he cannot get away with saying that “someone else paid her” because the fact remains that he used the services o fan underage prostitute and it was he who gave her the money, via his accountant Giuseppe Spinelli, but how and why would Berlusconi’s long-serving accountant pay these girls that prostitute themselves? Paid with apartments in the Milan 2 residential complex, rent free, with even their utility bills being paid for them, paid with envelopes bulging with money, paid with presents, expensive clothes, jewellery, etc. Those are the prosecution’s allegations, the main charge being the crime committed at Arcore.
A crime that could well be aggravated by another crime, with clause three of the very same article 600 stipulating that: “anyone using underage individuals younger than 18 years of age to put on shows or produce pornographic material, or who causes underage individuals younger than 18 to participate in pornographic shows shall be liable to serve a prison sentence of between 6 and 12 years, as well as a fine of between 25-thousand and 258-thousand Euro”. From what they tell us, these girls were not just there to take part in the Bunga Bunga ritual, but even before this, in order to be selected, to be nominated to spend the night and to earn more money, as much as 5 to 7-thousand Euro per night, they were obliged to cavort naked or at least half-naked around the edges of the swimming pool in dances, dressed up as nurses, policewomen, etc. Here too, if the girls taking part in these shows are underage, the individual that makes them do so is committing a crime and that’s why the Milan Prosecution is busy investigating the events. After all, anyone who has a daughter of their own should be thankful that the Penal Code punishes this kind of behaviour. At least we know that certain things are prohibited, that there is no question of privacy, no intrusion into one’s private life, no voyeurism and we really couldn’t give a damn about whatever it is that Berlusconi gets up to with women, as long as he is not committing any crime. The Milan Prosecution believes that he has indeed committed a crime, so what are they supposed to do about it, simply look the other way perhaps? Fortunately here in Italy they are obliged to prosecute whenever a crime has been uncovered.
So as we were saying about yesterday’s speech, what are the facts and the reasons behind it? Up to now, Berlusconi’s purpose as regards his court cases has always been to either make money and increase his power base, or to conceal the crimes he had committed in the past precisely to make money and increase his power base, think of the cases, namely All Iberian, slush funds, Financial Police, Mills, financial fraud, bribery of politicians, including Craxi, and illegal funding, but this is something totally different. He is a sick old man, a very sick old man suffering from an illness that was revealed two years ago by Veronica Lario, the woman that knows him better than anyone else and perhaps the one that loved him more than anyone else, because she stated that “I can’t go on like this any longer” because I no longer carry him here in my heart. Those that are close to him now must help him because he is unwell, he has this thing for underage girls!
No one was prepared to listen to her then and indeed many people said that Ms. Lario had become a communist, that she was at heaven alone knows which Bolshevik Service’s service while, in reality, Ms. Lario was merely warning that “this man is unwell!”, that this man deserved to have some friend, relation of perhaps one of his children to take him in hand, to look after him and to tell him to get out of politics, go and look for some treatment for your ailment because you’re busy single-handedly destroying yourself. That is precisely what is happening now, and it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with money, it is simply an obvious pathological problem, which Berlusconi is trying to conceal by letting the entire Country go to the dogs because, as regards his job, never mind his legitimate impediment claims that he spends 24 hours out of every 24 running this Country, in fact he is spending most of his time going with tarts and whatever little time he has left he spends trying to concealing the fact that he is going with tarts! The fact is that if you have one whore every now and then, you are still be in control of the situation, but when you get to the point of having 20/30/40 girls brought in every night, you can probably imagine how many people there are out there who could demand something from him in return for their silence, and imagine just how many manage to slip through! How many of these girls go around telling stories and there’s always a risk that one of these could just land up in front of a policeman and could begin to spill the beans, but why? Well, because there are simply too many of them out there, that’s why! No Middle-Eastern Harem has ever experienced anything like the things that we have read about already, those that we undoubtedly will still read about in the investigation report and those that are emerging from the Chamber of Deputies.
Where is the proof of these crimes, according to the Prosecution? The telephone call to the Police Station and all that happened immediately thereafter is recorded, minute by minute, in the policemen’s statements and the testimony provided by Public Prosecutor Fiorillo, the telephone calls and telephone records of the girls who explained what they went there to do and who clearly did precisely that, as witnessed by all of their telephone records, all located by the same mobile phone tower at Arcore. There is one recorded telephone conversation that we have not yet seen but that Il Fatto Quotidiano has already mentioned reveals Berlusconi talking to Ms.Minetti, in which he allegedly says that he knew that Ruby was underage, but the judges will never be able to prove that, except that he betrayed himself yet again, not only because he said this to Ms. Minetti whose phone was under surveillance at the time, but also because when you phone the Police Station to order that the girl be released to Ms. Minetti’s custody, it automatically means that you were fully aware of the fact that this girl was underage, otherwise why on earth would she need to be put in anyone’s custody in the first place? Girls over 18 years of age are free to wherever they like and it’s only underage girls that have to be in someone’s custody, so if Berlusconi went and found a custodian for that girl, namely Ms.Minetti, it can only mean that he knew that Ruby was underage. So with that he incriminated himself. They questioned two girls who took part in these parties together with Ms. Minetti and, unfortunately for him they didn’t have strong-enough stomach and landed up spewing out what they witnessed, so they were questioned by the magistrates and spilt the beans on what they had seen.
Finally there’s the matter of the envelopes full of money that were discovered. A number of them bore the words “Silvio B.”, can you guess who that could be? Envelopes containing 1000/2000/5000 Euro found in the girls’ homes in this Milano 2 complex, made available to them by Berlusconi. How is he going to talk his way out of that one? As with every other legal case, he claims that the Milan Prosecution doesn’t have jurisdiction because his house is at Arcore, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Monza Prosecution, but his problem is that the most serious offence, namely the crime of extortion, namely telephone call to a Public Official in order to force him, under threat, to release Ruby, actually occurred in Milan and since this is the most serious of the charges, which carries a penalty of I think 12 year imprisonment, the jurisdiction for the crime that he tried to conceal, namely the underage prostitution that took place in Monza lies right here with Milan, so what now? Now they are saying that the normal Court doesn’t have jurisdiction and that the case must be heard by the Ministerial Court since Berlusconi is Prime Minister and the Constitution stipulates that any proceedings resulting from crimes committed by the Prime Minister while in office are subject to prior authorisation by Parliament and then the Ministerial Court, However, the Prosecution has already responded, by stating the crimes were not committed during the course of doing his job as Prime Minister because if he had been acting as Prime Minister, he would never have committed extortion in the first place.
So while it’s one thing to manipulate a tender, which undoubtedly qualifies as abuse of power and is thus a crime committed while exercising your powers as Prime Minister, and while it’s one thing to appoint three secretaries because they happen to be your lovers, even though they may be useless and the official selection procedures have been bypassed, this qualifies as abuse of your powers as Prime Minister, but why? Well, because appointing secretaries falls within the scope of your powers, although you still abused those powers. But it’s a totally different matter when you phone the Police Station and demand the release of a young girl certainly does not fall within the scope of the Prime Minister’s powers. It’s up to the Police to make that decision and the Police Services in any event report to the Internal Affairs Ministry.
Mavalà Ghedini’s own-goal
That is why in this case there is no need for Parliamentary authorisation to proceed against Berlusconi and he will not be tried by the Ministerial Court. He must be tried by a normal Court. So why then has the case docket landed up before the Junta, together with a request for the Chamber’s authorisation to proceed? Well, because just the other day, the Prosecution attempted to conduct a search at the offices of Berlusconi’s accountant, namely Mr. Spinelli, but Attorney Ghedini intervened immediately, saying that: you cannot enter either Mr. Spinelli’s home or his offices, but why? Well, because Mr. Spinelli is just like Berlusconi and so, searching Mr. Spinelli’s premises is like searching Berlusconi’s premises, which cannot be searched without Parliamentary authorisation to proceed with the search. Mr. Spinelli is like an extension of Berlusconi and even the immunity is contagious, extending to Spinelli even thug he has never been a parliamentarian. Naturally, the Milan judges are being understandably and scrupulously prudent in this matter, even thug they could simply have laughed off such a puerile interpretation, but what does Mr. Spinelli have to do with Berlusconi anyway? Instead, they said: Okay, then we’ll ask Parliament for permission to search Berlusconi’s premises as well as Spinelli’s. What an own-goal that is for Ghedini, because now the reports have all landed up in Parliament and instead of remaining safely closeted in the safe of the Milan Prosecution, they are now open for all to see.
Of course, we all already know what the majority-controlled Junta will do. They will simply deny permission to proceed with any search of Berlusconi’s premises and therefore also those of Spinelli, but anyway, what do you think the investigators would have uncovered at Spinelli’s premises? Everyone has known since last October that the Milan Prosecution was busy investigating the Ruby affair and we’re now in January, so would he really still be hiding any incriminating material relating to the payments made to these girls in his offices? In any event, this fact has already been proven by other means. Remember the envelopes that were found and the girls’ trips to go and collect their payments from Mr. Spinelli. Furthermore, they even phoned him to complain that some of their neighbours had received more than they did, etc., so there was no real need for any search of his premises and this was all just a ploy, which, thanks to Ghedini’s own-goal, means that the reports are now out in the open.
So what happens next? The Chamber will vote, firstly Junta will vote on whether or not to authorise the search, then the Chamber itself will vote, probably against allowing the search of Berlusconi and Spinelli’s premises, but in any event the magistrates believe that they have sufficient grounds, so sufficient in fact that they want to go to trial immediately with the charges against Berlusconi in terms of the expedited procedure, but what is this expedited procedure anyway? Expedited judgement is a special procedure whereby there is no initial hearing. As you know, what currently happens is that preliminary investigations are conducted, then the docket is forwarded to the defence, which then has a few days time to ask the Public Prosecutor to investigate further on certain issues or to question certain witnesses if they have nota s yet been heard. Once the Prosecutor has done this, he can then be asked whether or not the matter is to be remanded for trial and if the Preliminary Investigations Magistrate believes it should be, then the actual trial begins. The expedited procedure instead, is an immediate matter. The Public Prosecutor asks the Preliminary Investigations Magistrate to immediately remand the individual for trial, without holding any preliminary hearing first and without lodging the case docket first, immediately, but why? Well, because the evidence that has been gathered is so overwhelming that these additional steps are meaningless. This is an alternative to the normal procedure and is specifically designed to expedite trial proceedings in cases where there is really nothing to discuss. Obviously the defendant is entitled to his defence, however, everything happens very quickly, so they have summonsed Berlusconi to appear next week, offering him three possible dates, given his many commitments, because prior to the expedited procedure the accused has to be questioned and, if he refuses, then worse for him. The tight deadlines are a very interesting feature, because it means that the evidence they have must be unquestionable and judgement must be swift. The expedited proceedings must commence within 90 days from when Berlusconi’s name was first entered in the Accused’s register, which in this case happened just before Charismas, on the 21st December to be precise, so judgement must begin by no later than the 21st March and now we’ll see what Ghedini and company are going to come up with to try to prevent this from happening. They have already announced that they intend to lodge appeals left, right and centre, including the UN, Amnesty International and heaven alone knows what other bodies, but if the law takes its course, by 21 March Berlusconi should be on trial for consorting with underage prostitutes, perhaps aggravated and perhaps not by those pornographic shows involving underage girls, as well as extortion, for which he risks going to jail for many years.
I would like to say one more thing in closing and that is that, as I said before, that the problem is not the fact that Berlusconi is under investigation because that is merely a consequence of the real problem because he is in any event already under investigation for various other alleged crimes including bribery and corruption, financial fraud, tax fraud, illegal funding, undue appropriation, and even for Mafia activities. At this very moment, Berlusconi is even under investigation for the Florence killings, so one could say: well, under those conditions, there is no way he can continue as Prime Minister. So the mere fact that he is under investigation for extortion and involvement in underage prostitution is not the real problem, which is the state of our Prime Minister if he feels the need to participate in the kind of activities revealed by this investigation. Although such activities are illegal and, since everyone is supposedly equal before the law, he must at all costs be brought to book, in this case the legal aspect is almost secondary to the human aspect, which has nothing to do with his personal and therefore extremely private health conditions, but rather the fact that we are being governed by a man whose psychological and physical condition is extremely suspect, a man who would undoubtedly be impeached if this were any other Country, irrespective of what went on at his house and whether or not it was indeed a crime but, unfortunately impeachment doesn’t exist here in Italy. However we still have a Head of State that could enlighten us and who could finally answer the question already posed in the Economist back in 2001 and one that everyone should be asking, even the members of the centre-right, namely: How can a man such as this, one that is so obviously sick and resorts to the kind of things mentioned by dozens of young girls and that lead him to phone the Milan Police Station from Paris to rescue, cover up and silence people, and to dish out envelopes left right and centre to girls whom he allegedly doesn’t even know, how can such a man continue to govern the Country, even a derelict one like ours is at the moment?
Rather than sending him to jail, we should send him for specialist treatment, make him better and possibly get him out of Palazzo Chigi. At the moment, however, given the fact the we have no real, credible opposition, the only ones that can do what is necessary are those that are senior to him, which means the Head of State. Who knows whether he is able to understand the fact that we cannot go on with a government that is headed up by someone such as this.
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